


Here, You Are Home

by UmbraeCalamitas



Series: Cadbury Universe [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Adult Humor, Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Art, Artificial Intelligence, Artist Steve Rogers, Asgard, Aunt Peggy Carter, BAMF Tony Stark, Ballet, Big Brother Thor (Marvel), Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Bruce Banner Hulks Out, Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Cadbury!verse, Canon-Typical Violence, Ceiling Vent Clint Barton, Clint Barton & Loki Friendship, Coffee, Deaf Clint Barton, Enemies to Friends, Except for The Feckin' Bean, Food Porn, Friendship, Gen, Graphic Violence, Grief/Mourning, Hawkeye sees better from a distance, Heavy Angst, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hulk Smash (Marvel), Hulk Talks (Marvel), Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt/Comfort, I promise, Insecure Tony, Kidnapping, Killer Robots, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Magic, Minor Character Death, My obsession with mythology rears its head, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Nick Fury is Not Amused, No character bashing, Norse Mythology - Freeform, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, POV Clint Barton, POV Third Person, POV Tony Stark, Pain, Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark Friendship, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Presumed Dead, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Thor (Marvel), Protective Tony Stark, Psychological Torture, Ragnarok, Robots, Seidr, Sensory Deprivation, Shapeshifting, Spies & Secret Agents, Supernatural does not intersect this fic, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Temporary Character Death, The Feckin' Bean, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony invents many toys, Torture, Trapped, Trigger Warnings, Weapons, and enjoyed it immensely, because, but also happiness, but i am, coffeeshop, eventually, for science, i went there, including adult toys, naked avengers art, not even sorry, prisoner, yes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-06-08 03:17:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 46,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15234159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UmbraeCalamitas/pseuds/UmbraeCalamitas
Summary: It’s been little over a year of the Avengers working together and they’ve become close. They’ve become friends.Family,some of them will whisper quietly, but only in the deepest parts of their minds where no one else can hear.When a mission goes wrong and Clint is killed, all of the Avengers are affected, but Tony disappears into his workshop for days. When he finally comes out, he has a new AI: a robotic bird named Featherbrain, who speaks in a familiar voice.Meanwhile, Clint wakes up, a prisoner in a cell, but he’s not alone. Sitting across from him is Loki, and no one knows where either of them are. They’ll have to work together to escape, but how can Clint possibly trustLoki?He might not have a choice.





	1. Natasha & Bruce

**Author's Note:**

> TotalNovakTrash is right. Cadbury will never end. 
> 
> So, welcome to my first MCU fic. I'm sure it won't be my last. I'm writing this with the expectation that the characters within will very likely show up in _Become the Beast_ at some point for a cameo, but I don't expect them to intersect _too much_ solely because I do not want to deal with the two Lokis, two Odins, etc bit. Because I am **lazy** , and dear Chuck, can you imagine GabrieLoki and Marvel Loki together in the same room? We won't need Michael and Lucifer to dance the Apocalypse Tango. But anyway... for those of you who are not into Supernatural, this fic isn't going to intersect _Become the Beast_ (often just called Cadbury) with the exception of Reynard the Fox and The Feckin' Bean (it is, after all, an interdimensional coffeeshop).
> 
> Some notes regarding continuity:
> 
> This occurs after Avengers and takes Thor 1, Captain America: The First Avenger, Hulk, and Iron Man 1 & 2 as canon. However, I ignore all of the other movies and Agents of SHIELD, because I can. I'm also mixing Marvel quite a bit with Norse mythology, but that won't come up until later. 
> 
> This fic contains adult humor! Rather a lot of it, actually. It also contains canonical character death (Coulson), violence, torture (physical and psychological), and temporary and presumed character death. I try to be sure to post warnings in the notes of chapters they pertain to, so please be sure to read the notes. <3 
> 
> Lastly, I do not own Marvel Cinematic Universe, or JARVIS. Or any robots, actually. I do, however, own a laptop and an overactive imagination. 
> 
> Enjoy.

**One**

**Natasha & Bruce**

* * *

 

When Tony looked back on it later, much later, he realized that their family came together in the way that his robots came together. Not all at once. Not built from the bottom to the top, or the inside to the out. Pieces here and there, drawn in vague design and then slowly, carefully _crafted_. Forged in fire and under stress, bent and folded into a shape that was sometimes not exact to the plan, sometimes had scratches, scars, or designs that were unexpected, but not unwanted. Weaknesses that could be compensated for with care, that turned out to be hiding strengths you never realized were there. 

Yes, Tony’s creations often matched his blueprints down to microscopic perfection, but that was design. Even the wires were cosmetic, albeit functional. But there were pieces that were… unplanned. Idiosyncrasies. Flaws. 

The sort of scar that made a simple rock into a gemstone. Perfection in a scratch that made everything seem more… human. 

JARVIS, after all, had been an accident. The sort of accident that sometimes kept Tony awake for days on end, recounting the moments of his creation in terror at the thought of having done one thing differently and never having been gifted with such a <s>person, friend, family, son</s> creation. Those minutes - seconds, even - where too little sleep and too much stress had him typing in the code that changed _everything_ . That made JARVIS. That moment, really, that showed Tony how much _more_ there was for him in the world than _weapons_.

Flaws. Human error. Or non-human error. Sometimes, they created magnificent things, but they took time. All things that were worth anything did, he knew. Time and patience and sacrifices.

They came together like that. His family. The Avengers. Slowly. One piece at a time, often in fits and starts, occasionally backpedaling - scrapping a failed design. But they did come together.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Bruce that came first. Tony had invited him. He _hadn’t_ begged, though he could admit it was a near thing. It was so rare to find someone who could keep up with him but didn’t want to murder him. But Bruce’s _incredibly justified_ fear of SHIELD and the military had him fleeing, and Tony was not the sort of person to stop someone retreating when they felt threatened. Not anymore.

So Bruce fled for anonymity and Steve (Captain freakin’ America) left to look at this new world and try and find his place in it. Tony didn’t protest his retreat. There was too much bad blood there, nevermind that Captain America had been dead the past seventy years. Tony still looked at him and heard his father’s voice, judgmental and sneering, telling him all the ways he would never be as good as Steve fucking Rogers. So Tony let him go - was grateful when he left - and didn’t say anything.

Thor left for Asgard, taking his brother with him and leaving the Earth behind. Tony regretted it some months later when he realized he had never asked the schedule that Asgard ran on. If the planet (he assumed it was a planet and Thor an alien… god… alien god?) spun at the same rate (on the same axis? The tilt? Did their life forms come from the ocean originally? What was the weather like? Air pressure? Atmosphere?) as Earth or were their days longer, their years shorter? Would four months on Earth be ten years in Asgard, or ten minutes? Would Thor come back to find them all gone? Was that the true reason they had never seen him before this? Divine immortality. It sounded almost as terrifying as a metal heart that could go on for fifty lifetimes. Would he outlive Thor? Would he outlive _the universe?_

Clint was stuck with SHIELD, stuck undergoing tests and psych evaluations to ascertain the cognitive recalibration that had shaken Loki’s mind-fuckery had cut the ties completely. There was no telling how long the archer would be under close scrutiny or if he would ever be released or just… quietly disposed of. Fury seemed like the quietly-disposing-of type. He probably made them walk a plank. Tony was sure the Helicarrier has a fucking plank. Probably a Jolly Roger, too. If not, he was going to make sure it got one. Or three.

No. Surprisingly, the first person to take Tony up on his offer of coming to the tower was Natasha. And it had been _his_ offer, he hadn’t done it for Fury and the Director of SHIELD had known better than to ask, or perhaps he realized asking was unnecessary. Whatever the reason, two months of silence gave Tony time to fix the structural damage to the tower and put some changes into place. Namely, floors designed specifically for the Avengers, and an offer, carefully worded and sent out on the phone numbers he absolutely had not hacked from SHIELD’s database. He’d expected Steve to come back, cringing from the newness of a world seventy years outside his understanding, or maybe (hopefully, wishfully) Bruce, feeling safe behind hard steel walls and Tony’s personality, stronger than the vibranium of Cap’s shield. But no. It was neither of them.

Natasha slipped in quietly, avoiding the attention of all of the security guards and JARVIS’ cameras, and was sitting in the kitchen one morning when he came out for coffee.

She didn’t say anything and, after the initial shock (“I have a heart condition, you know!”), neither did he. Tony made coffee and slipped back to his workshop. Natasha discovered her floor and made herself at home

And that’s where it began.

* * *

The two months that Tony spent with Natasha in the tower were… interesting.

It wasn’t the first time they had lived in the same building, but at that time, he had known her as Natalie and had been dying. Knowing who she was for certain changed things, because frankly, Natasha was terrifying, and Tony had a huge amount of respect for someone he was pretty sure knew nineteen different ways to murder him with a paperclip.

After that first day when he ran into her in the kitchen, he didn’t see her. He knew, logically, that she had to be moving around, that she wasn’t staying solely on her floor and not going anywhere else, but there was no evidence of her even living there.

And then, a little over a month into her stay, he stepped into the entertainment room on what he had begun to call the Common Floor and found her watching, of all things, Bob Ross.

For a moment, he had been so startled, he’d simply stood there, staring. But Tony wasn’t the sort to be silenced for long, nor the kind of person to wear that dumbfounded expression for longer than the span of a second. A mask of bored interest fell over his face and he stepped further into the room, dropping with careless ease onto the other end of the couch. He had planned on playing Mario Kart. He liked the entertainment center on the Common Floor. It was… not larger. His floor had a fantastic setup, even better than this one, and the most comfortable chairs. JARVIS projected the image of the screen, so Tony could lay on the floor and play video games on the ceiling or hang upside-down off a chair and have the screen orient to match his sight-line. So really, his own entertainment room was far superior than the television on this floor, even if it did take up the whole wall.

There was something about being in a room meant for more than just him, though. Yes, the entertainment room on his floor had more than one piece of furniture. There was an armchair in there that Rhodey was particularly fond of, but Rhodey wasn’t here, and Pepper was both busy running SI and had really never spent much time in the entertainment room.

Tony would never say he was _lonely_ but… he was lonely.

So sometimes he liked to go to the Common Room and play video games, as though at any moment someone might walk through the door and flop down into the seat next to him and tell him that Yoshi was a terrible choice of character and give them a controller because he was going down.

That it never happened didn’t change the fact that the room was a comfort.

So coming in to find Natasha there was… unexpected, unplanned, and perhaps just a little terrifying.

Okay, more than a little. Tony had a healthy fear of spiders, be they actual spiders or scary super-spies who were named after one.

And it was incredibly strange to sit there in a room with a woman who terrified him and watch Bob Ross calmly explain how to paint leaves on a tree. But as the minutes dragged on and no one stabbed him in the neck with a needle, Tony found himself relaxing into the couch cushions and letting the sound of the man’s voice wash over him. He’d never been a big fan of Bob Ross. Tony’s designs were usually done on a computer with JARVIS’ help, and when not, well, blueprints were a far cry from nature scenes.

Still, it was calming. It reminded him a little of Aunt Peggy, when he was small and his parents weren’t home. Sometimes she would sit at the table with him and they would eat cookies that Jarvis had made for them (oatmeal and chocolate chip), and she would show him how to draw planes or the shine of metal on a hubcap, or the light reflecting off Captain America’s shield. They were some of Tony’s most precious memories and in quiet moments, when there was nothing else begging for his attention, he liked to quietly pull them out and let them play in his mind.

It became something of a routine. Tony was still very busy with Stark Industries and building tech for SHIELD and designing some new weapon arrays for the armor. His days were often spent in the lab or at (ugh) board meetings that he couldn’t push off on Pepper, or doing a walkthrough of R&D. But at least once a week, Tony found himself wandering into the Common Room’s entertainment center to find Natasha there, already watching something.

Sometimes it was Bob Ross. Other times, it was documentaries on the most random of things – birds, the discovery of flight, ocean creatures, cats. His favorite by far had been the one about the creation of aerosol cans and the rising popularity of foods like cheese whiz and whipped cream in a can.

They didn’t talk much and Tony couldn’t even say for sure that a friendship existed between the two, but they had a mutual respect for one another and were both very capable of at least pretending to be polite. And amazingly, somehow, it worked.

And then Bruce showed up on his doorstep, looking a little lost and a lot uncertain about his welcome, and things changed.

* * *

Having Bruce at the tower was both wonderful and… tense. Natasha was _visibly_ distressed by his presence. Having the unflappable spy who was better at putting on masks than Tony act in such a way was deeply disturbing. Worse still, Bruce was aware of her upset and it caused a feedback loop that just kept ratcheting up the tension in the tower until Tony thought he might just tear his hair out.

And of course, he couldn’t blame either of them. Tony wasn’t worried about the Hulk. Having faced all that he’s faced in his life, seen the monsters whose faces continue to look perfectly human even while they rip your heart out of your chest, Big Green wasn’t anything Tony felt he had to be concerned about. Well. He _had_ made sure Bruce’s walls and floor were structurally sound and able to take a beating, but that was just being practical.

But while Hulk didn’t scare Tony, he obviously scared Natasha. Bruce hadn’t gone into huge detail, out of shame or a desire not to reveal a trauma that wasn’t his, Tony wasn’t sure, but he’d been given a few details here and there and put the rest together himself – that Natasha had been trapped and in the presence of a furious Hulk. Add in the fact that Natasha was a super-spy to whom trust was probably not a word she knew in _any_ language, and yes, that sort of event would leave scars.

Bruce would cringe when she entered the room and she would freeze and visibly attempt to hide her emotions, which just made Bruce cringe in shame and made her worried he would turn into Hulk.

Tony began to _look forward_ to being called out to battle the random science experiment gone wrong. Yes, even the giant gelatin monsters that smelled like sour tofu.

It was only a matter of time, he knew, before things came to a head. He knew neither how to solve the issue, nor how to prevent it, short of kicking one of them out of the tower, and there was _no fucking way_ he was going to do that. He’d gotten attached to both of these broken people, and since he was just a little (a lot) broken himself, he’d maybe started slotting pieces of himself in with theirs, trying to build something from all the shattered bits of what had done to them. He’d been starting to make… he didn’t know.

 _A family,_ a small voice whispered in the back of his mind, one that he gagged and buried under six layers of don’t-give-a-shit, because Tony Stark didn’t need a fucking family. Stark men were made of iron.

And if that voice in his head told him that even iron needed a hammer and an anvil and a set of tongs holding it so it could be smelted into something new, well… he gagged that voice, too.

But he didn’t know how to help Natasha and Bruce work out the tension between them. When it came to dealing with reporters and the military and schmoozing with the sycophants, Tony was a social butterfly, a man of quick comebacks and sharp wit. But those were the people who were there for Tony Stark and what he could give them, Tony Stark and his money, Tony Stark and his parties, where they whine and dine and don’t spend a dime. The people who didn’t care about Tony beyond what they could wheedle out of him. Those people were easy to deal with because Tony knew every one of them was an enemy. When he walked into a gala or stood in front of a line of senators, he stood on a battlefield and wore a different sort of armor. Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. The original armor. The mask that could fool the world.

But these people. Natasha, Bruce, these people who he thought he might be coming to lo- appreciate the presence of, even enjoy it. He couldn’t snap a witty one-liner and solve the issue, because he didn’t want to walk away from this. He didn’t want to lose this. He didn’t want to drive them away. But he didn’t know how to fix it.

Before he could work through the problem, miraculously come up with a solution, it was too late.

It happened late in the evening on a Friday. Tony normally didn’t pay much attention to the days of the week but Pepper had roped him into a meeting where he was set to discuss some of the projects he was working on for SI, so the bigheads on the board would stop freaking out about stock. Seriously, it was like they were worried he was going to run out of ideas or something. Tony had ideas hidden away that he didn’t feel the world was _ready_ for yet, ideas that he didn’t plan to release for another two decades, and frankly, he was thinking of designating an entire laboratory floor to that collection, because there was a lot. Running out of ideas? Tony couldn’t shut his brain off for five fucking seconds, never mind the rest of his life.

He’d tried to let himself be distracted by work (he did have a lot to do, after all) but Pepper was adamant. Tony was actually a little excited (and a lot wary) for the day she met Steve Rogers. He was pretty sure Pepper’s mildly-irritated-at-Tony look could have the good captain pissing his tights. He hoped he caught the meeting on camera.

So he went to the boring board meeting and met with the boring board. At least they let him talk about his designs for a while, but then they wanted to discuss money and stocks and Tony’s mind wandered off to the drawing station in his brain where he designed blueprints. He’d vaguely heard Pepper sigh beside him, but the benefit of having her there was so she could take care of the business side of things and let Tony build stuff. She was CEO, after all. And he was, according to her, a five-year-old adult with an impressive Lego collection.

Their return to bickering was a relief to Tony, who had been afraid that he and Pepper had lost the friendship he had been so grateful for, before Afghanistan and the two of them falling into a relationship. They had tried it, they had, both pushing to keep it long after they knew it wouldn’t work. Pepper couldn’t handle not knowing if he was heading out to his last battle, if she would get a phone call and have to listen in as he died (and seriously, what had he been thinking, calling her in those last moments? What would he have said?), or watch it on the television.

And Tony, though he loved her, would always love her on some level, knew that he would eventually resent her prodding him to eat and sleep and come out of the lab, as though he were a child and not a grown man. He did enjoy his toys and creating was often more like playtime than an actual job, but Tony _had_ run Stark Industries, had been CEO, had brought SI to new levels. His reluctance to deal with the boring parts didn’t mean he was incapable, but sometimes she acted as though he was, and it grated. It was different when she was his personal assistant and friend. As his personal assistant, it was her job to tell him when he had meetings and make sure he didn’t forget about them, and as his friend, he knew she cared about him and wanted him to take care of himself. But in the sort of relationship they had been attempting, balance was required, and it hadn’t existed, and so there was no way it could work.

He had been afraid, despite the breakup being mutual, that there would always be a tension there now, always an awkwardness they couldn’t get beyond. Four months after what had been dubbed The Battle of New York, though, the two were casually bickering as they had in the past, the awkwardness of an ended relationship gone. There was still some heartache. That would probably linger for a while yet. Tony had loved her, after all, and he knew she cared about him, and he thought, if things had been different, they could have been something great.

Still. He was glad to have his friend back. Glad to keep her even as just that.

And also to foist CEO duties off on her. He was not sorry he had done that. Pepper was good at what she did, and with Avenging going on in addition to SI and SHIELD needing work done, it took a huge burden off his back. Pepper could have the meetings. Now if only he could get her to stop dragging him to any of them.

They were in the elevator when the whole tower seemed to shudder around them, and then a familiar, muffled roar sounded in the distance. The elevator made an incredibly disturbing grinding noise and then shuddered to a halt.

“Oh my god,” Pepper muttered, backing into a corner like that would save her if the elevator fell the twenty-five floors to the bottom of the shaft. He decided _not_ to tell her how futile it was to try and brace herself.

“Talk to me, J.”

“Dr. Banner has had a minor incident in the kitchens, Sir.”

“That didn’t sound minor,” Pepper whispered.

“Dr. Banner has ‘hulked out,’ as you say, Sir.” The AI’s British tones took on a note of irritation as he added, “He has wrecked the communal kitchen and destroyed the oven. I have taken the liberty of shutting off power to that floor.”

“Where’s Natasha?”

“My sensors detected her entering her floor moments after Dr. Banner’s transformation. Sensors on that level were then disabled. I am unable to detect her exact location.”

Tony nodded. He would have to trust Natasha’s ability to take care of herself. “J, I need to get these doors open and call the armor for me.” He tapped the bracelets around his wrists that functioned as a homing beacon for the armor, even though he knew it wasn’t necessary.

“What’re you going to do?” Pepper asked, as the doors slid open. They weren’t level with the floor and Tony had to crouch and jump out of the elevator, turning around to help Pepper down to the floor. He felt her relax as her feet touched solid ground.

He stepped away as he heard the crash and tinkling sound of shattered glass, and then the armor was there, latching onto him, snapping into place. The faceplate snapped down over his eyes and the mechanical echo of Iron Man’s voice said, “Go see what my oven did to piss off my Science Bro.” He sent her a jaunty wave and blasted out of the building, through the shattered window and then up, bypassing the need for stairs or the elevator by rocketing to the communal floor. He broke another window, which he knew Pepper was just going to get on him about later, because getting someone to replace these windows was a tragedy in three parts.

He briefly considered taking the armor off to going to check on Hulk without its protection. The thing was, though he trusted Hulk and Bruce, this was the first time the jolly green giant had made an appearance since Bruce had moved into the tower, and though Tony had his suspicions, he wasn’t entirely sure what had set Bruce off. Best to go in as Iron Man, who Hulk had a good camaraderie with, just to be sure. If Hulk hurt Tony, even by accident, Bruce would never forgive himself.

So he landed on the communal floor and headed into the kitchen at a casual pace, spotting Hulk easily. He was sitting on the crushed remains of the breakfast table, hands in his lap, actually _pouting_ at what Tony thought had once been the oven. It was in the place where the oven had been at one time, but looked more like a crumpled shoebox now.

“Hey there, my favorite jelly bean. What’s got you so looking so green?”

Hulk looked up at him, dark eyes huge and expressive in a face that was so much like Bruce’s and yet so different. The giant green rage monster was definitely pouting, and wasn’t that an interesting look on him.

“Hulk smash,” Hulk said lowly, dropping his head again.

“I see that. That usually makes you happy, big guy. What’s going on?”

Hulk shuffled his feet a little, adjusting from side to side, and the wood beneath his bulk groaned in protest. The big guy actually sighed a long breath and Tony was reminded of the kids he sometimes ran into at galas, that had been dragged there by their parents and told to behave. That long-suffering sigh was one he was all-too-familiar with. He usually didn’t want to be there either.

“Hulk smash Tin Man’s stuff.”

Tony sank down into a crouch so he could peer up at Hulk’s face. Downcast, all sad eyes and regret. “That happens sometimes. I’ve smashed lots of my stuff. Should’ve seen my workshop when I built the armor.” He waited for a long moment but Hulk only seemed to try and pull his giant limbs in closer, trying to make himself smaller, and it hurt Tony to see it. “If you’re worried about how I’m gonna react, you don’t have to. It’s okay.”

Hulk glanced up at him then and he knew, on some level, Bruce was still conscious, just by the look of resigned exhaustion in those great big eyes. “Hulk go?”

Tony frowned, trying to parse exactly what was meant by that, because either Hulk was asking if he should let Bruce come back, or he was asking if he should _leave_. He wasn’t sure asking for clarification was the best way to go.

“I like having you here, Big Guy. You can stay as long as you want.”

Hulk mouth turned down in a frown. “Spider want Hulk to go.” Large fingers picked at the rubble beneath him. “Hulk scare. Sorry.”

Tony chest ached. He wanted _so badly_ to tell Hulk – to tell Bruce – to stay, but he knew that this wouldn’t get any better. Not the way the two were dancing around one another. He couldn’t keep them both there knowing they would be constantly unhappy, that Bruce would hulk out again and again until he finally gave up and ran from the stress.

“I think, maybe,” he said, reluctant, “that’s something Bruce needs to talk to Natasha about.”

“Tin Man’s castle,” Hulk grumbled petulantly, and Tony grinned at him calling the tower a _castle_. He’d have to ask Bruce why that particular word transferred over.

“Hulk and Spider’s lives,” he retorted. “I’m not your jailor, big guy. I’m just your friend.”

“Friend,” Hulk said softly, almost reverently, and Tony turned around and put his hands on his hips to hide the shine of tears in his eyes.

“Well, since you’re here, how about I put you to work. You wanna help me move some of this mess? I think our kitchen needs a new stove.”

When Hulk reverted to Bruce later, Tony carefully helped him to his floor, glad he was still wearing the armor. He tucked the unconscious scientist into bed and took a long moment to just stare at the tense lines on the man’s face before making his way back to the penthouse with a heavy heart.

Bruce would be gone by morning.

* * *

Bruce was not gone the next morning.

In fact, he was sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea and a bemused expression on his face. Tony tried to walk casually to the coffeepot, he really did, but his own surprise had his legs stuttering to a halt in the doorway, the uneven gait alerting Bruce, who raised his head. There were dark bags under his eyes and his skin was a little red where his cheek had been pressed against his hand, but his eyes were alert and Tony wondered how long he had been awake.

Was he just waiting here to say goodbye?

“Tony,” Bruce said, eyes widening slightly, and Tony realized he had just said that entire stream of thought _out loud_ , damn his caffeine-lacking brain.

Bruce stood up from his chair and Tony took a step back, barely conscious of the movement. He grinned at Bruce and forced a laugh out of his throat. “Morning, Brucie-bear. I see you’re an early riser, which is just disgusting, by the way. How’d you sleep? Better yet, have you had coffee yet? Do you want coffee? I want coffee. Coffee is good. Awesome. _Great_!” And if he said that last part a little bit too much like Tony the Tiger, well, he’d blame that caffeine withdrawal.

He stalked over to the coffee pot, which blissfully allowed him to turn his back on Bruce, and shoved the ceramic mug beneath the drip, punching the button with a little too much force. He heard Bruce’s footsteps move closer and hunched his shoulders, waiting for the inevitable farewell.

“If I told you I was gonna take off, what would you say?”

 _Please don’t,_ Tony thought brokenly, but swallowed the plea, forcing a grin onto his face and turning to look at Bruce. The guy was standing in the center of the kitchen, hands loosely clasped in front of him, fingers rubbing together and just watching Tony. Why was he watching? Why didn’t he just get it over with? Rip out Tony’s heart like Obadiah had and saunter off.

Okay, that wasn’t fair. Bruce was nothing like Obadiah and he wasn’t doing this to hurt Tony. He was doing this to protect himself. Tony could understand that. He’d built a robotic suit of armor decked out in weapons with the ability to fly in order to protect _himself._ Bruce’s means of protection was just different. That was all. It was fine. I was all fine.

“I might demand some postcards,” he said lightly, though he could feel his smile was too wide. Too many teeth. Far too many teeth. “Maybe a souvenir from the gift shop wherever you end up. Do they still make yo-yos? Send me a yo-yo, Bruce.”

“Tony.”

His fingers trembled, traitorous little bastards, and he turned and grabbed his coffee cup, his shaking hands sending coffee over the sides. He brought it to his lips and sucked the contents down, ignoring the scalding pain in his throat. Caffeine. He needed caffeine and the armor. Something he could wrap himself in with a mask that hid his face. Something to make it stop hurting so damn much.

He shoved his coffee cup back into the machine and hit the button again. His could feel the muscles in his shoulders bunching together and his hands gripped the counter hard. “Are you gone yet?” he whispered harshly, not turning around. He didn’t want to watch Bruce leave. He was so tired of watching people walk out of his life.

“Tony,” Bruce said again, and he sounded tired and hurt, and he could have the first one, but the second belonged to _Tony_ . Bruce didn’t get to feel hurt right now. Bruce was _leaving_.

“Tony, turn around. Please.”

He considered not doing it. Considered just standing there staring at the coffee pot until Bruce left, defeated. But the idea of not truly saying goodbye (there had been so many times when he never got to say _goodbye_ ) would hurt so much worse later, and Tony had enough regrets.

With a sigh, he turned around, looking at Bruce. He gave a shrug when the man didn’t say anything because here he was, facing him. _Are you gone yet?_

When Bruce moved, Tony had less than a second to wonder what-the-fuck, and then Bruce’s arms were wrapped around him and he was being held tight and for a moment, his brain actually stuttered into stillness. His arms, folded across his chest, were pressed hard against Bruce’s chest, and the man’s hair was tickling his ear.

He felt himself shaking and tightened his hands into fists to stop it. His voice still quivered, though. “Bruce?”

“I’m not leaving,” Bruce said, and his breath was warm on Tony’s neck. “I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to check if it was okay, after last night. After the Hulk came out. I wanted to make sure that it was okay I stayed.”

Tony dropped his own arms from their tight cross, bringing them up to grab at Bruce’s shoulders. “It is,” he said quickly, desperate to reassure.

Bruce’s arms squeezed and tightened the hug. “I know,” he said. “I wasn’t sure but I know now. And I’m not gonna leave.”

 _Yes you will,_ a voice spoke in the back of Tony’s mind. It sounded like Obadiah.

“Okay,” he said quietly, pushing the cruel voice away, and tried not to wonder why the hand Bruce buried in his hair felt so _sad_. He got to keep his Science Bro! This was amazing!

“What about…” He swallowed. Why did he want to bring up doubt? “What about Natasha?”

Bruce huffed a laugh and pulled back to look into Tony’s face, that bemused look back on his face, accompanying a smile. “I talked to her this morning,” he said, his voice wry, which suggested there may have been less of Bruce talking and more of him just being talked _at_. “Who do you think convinced me to stay?”

* * *

“Natasha?”

Tony wasn’t sure about having this conversation. Part of him thought for sure he shouldn’t say a thing, should just pretend that Natasha’s conversation with Bruce had happened between them and he didn’t know a thing about it, that Natasha would prefer it was never mentioned.

But it had been mentioned. And Natasha was the reason that Bruce had stayed. The reason that Tony hadn’t woken up in the morning to a floor empty of the man it had been built for. He had to at least acknowledge, to her, that she’d done something. He _had_ to thank her, somehow. And yes, he could have made her a new, far superior weapon than the one provided her by SHIELD, but since he intended to do that anyway, that seemed like cheating.

Why couldn’t this be as easy as wooing a reporter?

Because it meant too much to him. More than any sex had ever meant.

Plus there was the whole thing where Natasha scared the hell out of him.

The fact that JARVIS’ sensors could now detect Natasha’s floor and her presence on it seemed like a gesture of welcome, however. Or, at least, Tony was taking it as one.

There was a large room, mirrored all around, that Tony had included in the design of Natasha’s floor without knowing what it was going to be used for. He had received an anonymous email that all but screamed SHIELD around the time that he was in the planning stages of the tower’s new rooms. He’d told JARVIS to trace the email back but had been informed that the trace led nowhere, which had been distressing – who was good enough that they could outwit JARVIS? – but it hadn’t been a huge concern at the time. He’d put it off to deal with at a later date, when he didn’t have a million things to do. That time hadn’t come yet, unfortunately, but he also hadn’t received any other emails and no one had attempted to hack his systems. Still, a puzzle.

But now, he could see that the room had been meant for, and he was… surprised.

He was even more surprised when Natasha turned around to look at him, dressed in a form-fitting black leotard.

“Stark,” she said in greeting, studying his face, her own blank. If she was looking for any sense of him being overcome by her appearance, she wouldn’t find it. Natasha was an incredibly attractive woman, he could admit that easily, but she could also probably kill him with her pinky toe. Besides that, Tony might play into the media’s view of him as an uncaring ass and giant playboy, and yes he’d slept with a lot of women and men over the years, but he _never_ slept with anyone who wasn’t one hundred percent interested. He didn’t know the actual relationship between Natasha and Barton, but he had a feeling she was taken. He wasn’t planning on even stepping in the direction of her way.

Whatever she was looking for, she seemed to have found it, because she turned away from him (and he thought he should probably take a moment at some point to have a quiet freak-out over the fact that she trusted him enough to turn her back to him).

“I…” Tony’s jaw worked for a minute, trying to figure out how to even say what he wanted to say. What did he even want to say? “I talked to Bruce this morning.”

“Mmhm.”

He watched, mildly horrified, as she grasped her one leg and pulled it upward, bending over slightly as she did a damn fine job of trying to press her toes to the back of her head. He was pretty sure if he attempted that, the muscles in the back of his thigh would just explode.

“Uh… I didn’t… expect to see him,” he said, when she turned her head and looked at him while her leg was _folded over her spine_. “I figured he’d be long-gone.” He took a deep breath. “But he wasn’t.”

“No,” she said slowly, as she eased her leg back down and shifted position. Holy shit, there were other stretches? Didn’t you get a free pass once you managed to turn yourself into a pretzel? Here’s a medal of success, you are done and free to go. That sort of flexibility should come with telekinesis, just to spare the mind’s of the people witnessing it. _Oh my god, does she have a pelvis? Note to self: surreptitiously x-ray Natasha._

Her lips slid into a smirk and he cleared his throat. _On second thought, ask politely first and if she glares,_ **run**.

Tony could feel himself jittering like he hadn’t had enough coffee and was itching for the next cup. He needed something to go on. Did he tell her he knew she had talked to Bruce? Or did he just… leave? Leaving sounded good, actually. Safer. Less traumatizing. He could go have Jarvis look up the stretches Natasha was doing so he could determine if she was, in fact, a cat, and that’s why she looked like she could probably squeeze through the bars of a jail cell and just walk out the front door.

Oh god, he was going to have _so many nightmares_.

He nodded sharply. “I’ll just let you… stretch,” he said, and he totally didn’t squeak the last word as she did a _sideways split_ while holding her ankle and seriously, she didn’t have any bones at all. She was made of liquid. Like a cat. Or a really scary bowl of pudding.

He turned and walked out of the room as fast as he could while still walking, worrying the hem of his shirt between his thumb and forefinger. His shoulder rapped against the doorframe as he turned the corner into the hall. He made it about eight feet before he let out an explosive sigh and turned around, striding back into the room.

Natasha had one leg up on the bar and one arm over her head as she bent over backwards. As he stepped into the room, she tilted her head a little further and regarded him with a disinterested curiosity.

Tony took a breath, his fingertips tapping against his thigh. He met her gaze, wondering if it said something about his life that talking to an international assassin while she was basically upside-down didn’t even phase him.

“Thank you.”

Her lips upturned the slightest bit and he gave himself a mental pat on the back. Maybe things would work out, after all.

And then Steve arrived.


	2. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve joins the group in the tower and Tony is prepared for the worst, but Captain America disappoints all expectations. 
> 
> In this case, Tony doesn't mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I know it's only been three days but we _are_ just starting out. So here we have the second chapter. 
> 
> I've received a couple concerned messages about _Cadbury_. Don't worry, I'm still working on that one. Dean just decided that I've been spending too much time in his brother's head and has me working on a fic that won't come out for at least a month. *rolls eyes* Impatience incarnate, that man. 
> 
> This chapter contains adult humor. Please be aware of the tags and warnings. 
> 
> As a note, I am familiar with some painters because of my fondness for specific paintings but am, by no means, an expert. I would love to hear who your favorite artist is or your favorite painting in the comments. 
> 
> I'm a big fan of Van Gogh's _Starry Night Over the Rhone._
> 
> Happy reading!

**Steve**

* * *

Tony thought he’d rather Fury stay in the tower than Steve Rogers.

He still remembered vividly the words spat at him on the helicarrier. “Big man in a suit of armor. Take that away, what are you?”  _ Useless, _ was the implication.  _ Worthless. Human. Less-than.  _ Certainly less than Steve, but then, that had always been the case.

Steve Rogers had been the bar against which Tony was judged his entire life, and no matter what he did, he never measured up. His dad had been incapable of looking at him without seeing the shadow of Captain America there like the measuring stick in front of a rollercoaster.  _ You must be this tall to ride.  _ Tony had needed to be  _ this man _ in order to be anything of worth in Howard Stark’s eyes, and Tony had always disappointed.

He’d always  _ been  _ a disappointment.

Having Steve point it out to him, that he was less the world’s first superhero, less than the man he’d been hearing about  _ his entire life, _ had been like salt in a wound he’d carried since his birth. Worse than the hole in his chest. Steve Rogers had been a shadow leaning over him, judging him, all the time that he was nothing more than a ghost. And now that he was alive? What could Tony expect but more of the same?

And he’d invited the man – the super man – into his tower, into his home, because if he was anything at all, he was a glutton for punishment.

So he’d already been expecting a lot of Steve Rogers, Captain America, Mr. Perfect, the son his dad had always wanted and never gotten. He’d been expecting  _ a lot _ .

This time, it was Steve Rogers who disappointed.

But really, Tony didn’t mind.

“ _ Gosh,” _ Steve muttered when the elevator doors opened on his floor, and Tony had to delete his first three responses before they reached his mouth and he ruined any possibility of this being a survivable situation.

But  _ gosh _ ? That practically demanded at least a snicker!

No. Nope.  _ Be the bigger man here, Tony. Be the adult. _

_ I hate adulting. That’s why I have Pepper. _

“I know it looks daunting,” he said, thinking about the technology he had to force himself to keep off this floor plan. Well, the technology he had told Jarvis not to install no matter how much he begged and pleaded and whined and maybe even cried a little, because seriously, seventy years of technological innovation. It was the Stone Ages. Tony would have been less horrified if he’d actually built a time machine and taken himself to the Stone Ages, because this was a travesty. It was horrifying.

Although, bright side, he would be able to introduce Steve—

No, Rogers, or should he call him Captain America? What does one call a national icon who they probably shouldn’t know nearly as much about as they did? Except that Tony did know a lot, because Steve had been like that older brother who went to school before him so everyone called you by their name instead of your own, and they were the first and the best in everything. He had always been  _ Steve _ to Tony once he was old enough to understand that Captain America was a person and not just a comic book hero. And he couldn’t call him Mr. Rogers, because there was no way that Tony could call anyone that without bursting out laughing. Also the fact that having his own floor in the tower really did make Steve his neighbor… yeah, there was only one Mr. Rogers and Steve wasn’t it.

But it couldn’t be Steve – too informal, casual, friendly. They weren’t buddies. Mr. America would be hilarious but probably taken the wrong way. Captain America was too formal even on the field – Tony was not a formal type of man unless he was, and even then it was usually tongue-in-cheek-I’m-making-faces-at-your-back-and-you-know-it formality.

Rogers would work. Basic, neither formal or informal, but didn’t put out vibes of them being pals, which was good. Still, didn’t sound quite right. He’d never been Rogers. He’d always been Steve – too friendly, too informal, not your brother – or Captain America – too formal, standoffish, villainy? – so something in between would work best and he had it.

“But don’t worry, Cap. We’ll get you caught up in no time. You are gonna love it.”

Seventy years was almost a century. The speed at which the technology had advanced  _ outside _ of Stark Industries was enough that Tony would be introducing Cap to a whole new universe, basically. But it would be good. New perspective. Older perspective. He might get some ideas for some new tech. That’s always fun. Bright side, Tony. You can do this.

“Thanks… Stark. I appreciate the offer of letting me – us – all stay here. It… it’s different. New York.”  _ The world. _

There had been a slight hesitation there before his name. Maybe Cap was having some problems, too, determining where they stood.

That was fair. When he was attacked, Tony gave as good as he got, and they did fight basically an entire war together. Did the Chitauri count as a war? Maybe just a battle? Skirmish?  _ Fracas? _

He wavered for a moment, then held out his hand. “Call me Tony. Stark always makes me feel like you’re going to follow it up with  _ -raving mad, _ and let’s be fair, it would not be the first time I’ve heard that.”

Rogers – Cap – gave him a smile that was, dare he even think it, shy, but his grip was strong enough in Tony’s hand. “Steve.”

And that began Tony’s introduction to a Steve Rogers he realized he had never met before or even heard of.

He thought he liked him.

One of the first things he learned about Steve was that he didn’t talk a lot, usually, but he  _ could _ , especially if he got to talking about something he really enjoyed. Tony ended up running into him one afternoon while he was studying the art hung on the walls in the tower – Tony didn’t know what any of it was, Pepper had picked it – and a casual question led to an hour long discussion that was almost entirely one-sided. It did enlighten Tony to the fact that Steve really did love art. It wasn’t just random sketching here and there. More than just that, Steve  _ knew _ art.

And well, Tony knew people.

* * *

“Are you sure about this?” Steve was tugging on the sleeves of his tux like he was trying to pull them over his hands. Not adjusting the shoulders or fiddling with the tie. Just pulling on the sleeves like he wanted to tuck his hands inside them. It brought up images of big, burly Steve Rogers in a too-large suit jacket, and Tony absolutely did not find that adorable.

But it was a reminder that despite having been born in the forties, Steve had been basically transplanted through time. He wasn’t eighty-years-old, never mind his birthday. He wasn’t even thirty.

“You’ll wrinkle it,” Tony said, grinning at him, “and I will make you sit through Dominic’s lecture.”

The tuxedo was a navy blue, custom made to fit Steve’s frame by Tony’s personal tailor. Dominic Straven was a terror on two legs. Six feet tall with long black hair and eyebrows that were probably sharper than the knives he knew Natasha carried, they had no qualms about tearing into Tony for ruining one of his suits (and seriously, those bullets holes were totally not his fault). If Steve wrinkled his suit and brought out Dominic’s ire, Tony would absolutely leave him there to suffer by himself, because Dominic was scarier than Natasha and Pepper combined.

He tugged on Steve’s sleeves, fixing the cuffs beneath, and then smacked his fingers lightly when he went to reach for them again. “Don’t touch, or I’ll glue them in place. I’m not joking. JARVIS, am I joking?”

“You never joke about any of your suits, Sir.”

“See? Jarvis knows. No touch.” He spun back around to the mirror to fix his own tie. “I figured it would be Bruce freaking out about going into public, not you.”

“Oh, I’m freaking out, don’t worry. It’s a silent terror.” Like Tony, Bruce was wearing a black tuxedo, though not exactly the same style.

“Is that a bowtie? Seriously?”

Bruce made a face at him. “Bowties are cool.”

“Oh no, you do not get to come in here and quote Doctor Who at me. Shut up. Is it velcro, too?” Bruce dodged his reaching hand. “It is, isn’t it?”

“Considering the likelihood of the Big Guy making an appearance is probably ninety-eight percent, I’d rather not be strangled by my choice of clothing, Tony.”

Tony made a face. “Oh fine. You can keep your not-cool velcro bowtie.” He stuck his tongue out at Bruce. “And if  Big Green shows up, we’ll get a glass of champagne big enough for him and maybe he’ll get an interview with… who’s there tonight, J?”

“ _ Time _ , I believe.”

“Cool.  _ Time  _ can interview Hulk. They’ll love it.”

“This is a terrible idea and if I destroy the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I’m blaming you.”

“Go ahead. Everyone else will.” Tony waved it off without concern. Now, if Thor had been here, he might have had different thoughts, because the possibly-an-actual-god with a giant hammer that defied physics was not completely knowledgeable about how  _ delicate _ some human creations were. A twelve dollar glass in a bar was a far cry from a two million dollar painting by some dude who was long dead.

Tony was not above hacking security feeds from years past to get information SHIELD wasn’t willing to dish out. Not that he would ever let them know that he had a habit of doing that, and they certainly weren’t about to discover it on their own. That shitty helicarrier had Hammertech written all over it.

“This will be good publicity for the Avengers. Clean-up was a good start, but unless we want the press to start making up stories about us – and trust me, we don’t – we need to give them something to write about and faces to snap photos of. Best way is a charity event like this.” He finished with his tie and turned around, pulling a pair of sunglasses from his pocket. “And this?” He slid them on. “This is just another suit of armor. You think the Chitauri were a battle? Wait until you meet the media.”

“A good first impression will go a long way,” Natasha said as she stepped through the door, and her dress made even Tony pause. Natasha was not unaware of that, by the way she cocked an eyebrow at him.

“You look… nice, Natasha.” He cleared his throat. “Dominic has good taste.”

“Xe do,” she said, and smiled like a cat who’d just eaten an entire nest of canaries. Her dress was a floor-length ball gown that fit like a sheath over a blade. Sleeveless, the narrow straps glittered with gold sequins that lined the modest collar. The miasmic purple of the bodice was decorated with a flowing gold design that caught the eye, trailing down over the hips into the lower half of the dress, which was a much darker shade of purple. The dress split about mid-thigh, allowing her ease of movement, and her terrifyingly-high heels matched the gold of the dress. Her hair fell in large curls around a face that didn’t need more than a brief touch of makeup, and Tony was pretty sure should could have gotten away with none. She might have looked like the world’s most beautiful woman, but all he could think of was how many different ways she could kill him with the dangling earrings that looked quite a bit like hawks – something he was not going to mention  _ ever _ .

Tony nodded. “And that is all I feel safe saying.” He looked around the room. “Where’s Pepper?”

“Miss Potts said that she will meet you at the museum,” Jarvis supplied helpfully. “Mister Hogan is waiting for you with the car.”

“Let’s not keep Happy waiting.” He eyed Natasha, wondering what the protocol was on leading international assassins to the car, and if he would get to keep his hand if he extended it to her.

Natasha laughed. “Ты слишком много волнуешься.” ( **You worry too much.** ) She held her hand out to him and he tucked it in his arm with some relief. “Вы можете сопроводить меня сегодня вечером. Но если вы касаетесь меня ниже моей талии, я буду срывать ваши глазные яблоки и заставить вас съесть их.” ( **You may escort me tonight. But if you touch me below my waist, I will pluck out your eyeballs and make you eat them.** ”)

“Есть нет людей, глупых достаточно, чтобы сделать это,”  **(There are no people stupid enough to do this,)** he said, and saw Steve and Bruce whip their heads around in surprise.

“Не после Будапешта..” **(Not after Budapest.)**

“Когда-нибудь ты расскажешь мне, что случилось в Будапеште.”  **(Someday you’ll tell me what happened in Budapest.)**

“Когда-нибудь ты спросишь.”  **(Someday you will ask.)**

* * *

Tony could practically feel Steve’s awe rolling off him as they stood in the entrance hall of the Met. It was already crowded with people, but the vaulted ceiling and bright sunlight shining in made it seem less closed-in. Tony looked around through his shades, noting familiar faces and attaching names when he remembered them. He remembered most of them.

“Mister Stark!”

Tony turned at the sound of his name excitedly shouted and felt a real grin slide over his face. “Takumi,” he greeted warmly, accepting the handshake he was offered from the younger man. Kobayashi Takumi was an art collector who Tony had worked with on many occasions. They had indulged in something of a competition for a few years before they met. When a painting went up for auction and Pepper asked him if he wanted to put in a bid, he was often competing with three or four other bidders. Tony wasn’t big on art – his mother had been, though, and he had continued to collect it after he had taken controlling interest of the company.

Buying auctioned pieces had mostly been something of a vague hobby, wherein he focused on painters he knew his mother had been fond of. Van Gogh, for instance, or Monet.

Tony hadn’t paid much attention to the competition, up until one of the other bidders dropped a quarter of a million dollars on Flight and Fall of Icarus, a sketch done by Salvador Dali that was part of his Mythology collection. Despite having over half the collection in storage, Tony had mostly been interested in because it was one of the stories his mother had told him frequently as a child, before he was too old for bedtime stories. The most notable thing was that the bidding had been only at one hundred thousand at the time, so whoever had won the auction had very clearly  _ wanted _ the etching. Tony had been intrigued. Enough that he had Pepper find out where the painting had gone – not an easy task as the bidding was anonymous, but the etching had been lent to an art exhibit shortly thereafter, so Tony had gone without any necessary prompting from Pepper (in hindsight, he wished J had been recording that conversation visually so he could have a photo of her  _ face _ . Her expression had been hilarious!). There, he had met Kobayashi Takumi and learned that the nameless, faceless bidder who occasionally bought a painting out from under him was an art collector who had been immensely irritated by Tony preventing him from completing his collection of Hokusai’s  _ Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji _ when he purchased  _ Rainstorm Beneath the Summit _ .

Tony had laughed himself silly over learning this, and then offered to trade the painting for Dali’s sketch. Takumi had been so surprised he had agreed before he’d really thought about it, and the two struck up a tentative friendship that evolved into conversations about paintings that were going up for auction and keeping apprised of any the other was looking for. Takumi spoke more frequently to Pepper than he did to Tony, as she was more knowledgeable about what was going up for auction and art in general, but the two kept in contact. Takumi was the one who had informed Tony of the up-and-coming artist who was being shown off in the exhibit tonight. He and Tony had enjoyed a friendly competition over bidding for the paintings, which Tony had won out of what he was not ashamed to admit was pure greed. There was no way he was not getting every single painting in this collection. And possibly opening his own museum. Because  _ reasons. _

“It is good to see you, Tony,” Takumi said, grinning at him. “Even if you did purchase the latest Jackson Pollock out from under me.”

“Pfft!” Tony flapped a hand at him, making the man grin. “Like you don’t have every other painting he has ever done. I promise to auction it off in a few years, without warning, and let you fight Markoff for it.”

“I will trade you for it. I do believe you are missing a painting I just recently acquired.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. It concerns a lady in a lake with a very famous sword.”

“Takumi, you did not.”

The man laughed. “We will talk later, Tony. I’m very interested in that last Pollock painting.”

Tony shook his head. “After the exhibit.”

“Of course.”

The two moved apart, both still chuckling to themselves, and Tony went in search of his companions. Steve was fairly easy to find, being the tallest man in the room, and Natasha the most beautiful. Bruce was a little harder to spot, but since the room was fairly crowded and loud, being the entryway, Tony moved further into the museum.

As expected, the Medieval Art exhibit was much quieter, and slightly darker, the lights dimmed to preserve the paintings. His eyes spied a familiar painting and he took in the image of the Lady of the Lake, holing gleaming Excalibur half out of the water, and then scowled at the tag next to the painting.  **_Donated by Kobayashi Takumi._ **

_ Takumi, you bastard,  _ he thought with a grin.

“Paintings of Excalibur are usually brighter,” Bruce said quietly from next to him. “I like it.”

“I want it,” Tony said, pouting. He turned to Bruce and stuck his bottom lip out. “Takumi put it here to mock me, Brucie-Bear.”

Bruce cocked an eyebrow at him. “And what do you want  _ me _ to do about it?”

“Threaten to smash?” He stuck his lip out further. “Please?”

Bruce rolled his eyes, but his lips did turn up at the edges and he huffed a quiet laugh as he looked at the ground. Tony gave himself a quick mental high-five, then grabbed Bruce’s arm and headed further into the museum, dragging the scientist behind him and ignoring the man’s half-hearted protests.

“Where are we going?” he finally asked.

“To the main exhibit, of course. That’s why we’re here.”

Bruce rolled his eyes. Tony could feel it. He laughed softly so as not to disturb the other patrons. “You’re gonna love it, I know it.”

“I don’t think you even told us what it is.”

“I didn’t! Natasha probably knows, of course, but I don’t think Steve even knows what Google is so I’m pretty sure he wasn’t going to look it up.”

“And me?”

“I told J to make sure all your search results were cheap anime porn.”

Bruce laughed, unrestrained this time. He had a low, breathy laugh that shook his whole body and Tony grinned to hear it.

“Glad I didn’t look, then.”

“I can tell him to keep the parameters up for a while if you’re curious.” His fingers tightened on Bruce’s arm as he leaned in closer and whispered, “Do you have a thing for tentacles, because there was some Lovecraftian shit going on there.”

“You have an octopi fetish, Tony?”

“Maaaaaaybe,” he purred into Bruce’s ear.

Laughing, Bruce shoved him away, and Tony went with a laugh of his own. He was delighted by the smile on Bruce’s face, the lessened hunch of his shoulders. He didn’t bring it up, though. Just smiled and kept walking beside his friend as they headed further into the museum.

“Are you at least going to tell me this artist’s name?”

“And ruin the surprise?”

Tony knew the layout of the Met well from previous visits and led Bruce easily through the corridors and different showrooms. They skipped the crowded elevator, instead taking the stairs to the second floor. The exhibit room was in the rear of the museum, in the modern and contemporary art section. There were already a crowd of people milling around, but Tony made his way through the group. They had seats, after all.

He felt the moment Bruce realized what the exhibit was about because the man’s entire body went taut. “Oh, no.” He tried to pull away but Tony tightened his grip and felt more than heard Bruce groan in horror. “Tony, you didn’t.”

“Aw, come on. It’s good art. Just look at that six pack on Hulk – so realistic.”

“What the fuck.”

Tony threw his head back in laughter at the familiar sound of Steve’s voice spouting words he  _ never _ thought he would have the pleasure of hearing. He turned around to face a red-faced Steve Rogers and Natasha, who wasn’t showing any expression on her face but  _ may _ have been studying the painting of Captain America a little more closely than Steve might have been comfortable with, had he been paying attention.

Of course, anyone with eyes found their gaze going back to the painting. Steve was there in all his glory, freshly out of battle, the fires of a furious fight still burning bright behind him, his skin gleaming with sweat.

All of his skin, from head to toe, as the only piece of his uniform on hand was his shield, held carefully (perhaps disappointingly) in front of his most patriotic parts.  _ I wonder if Little Steve stands to attention?  _ Tony felt a giggle rising and turned his attention to another painting, but seeing his own rather phenomenal penis covered by the gleaming eyes of the Iron Man helmet did nothing to stem his laughter.

“Stark,” Natasha said icily, and Tony just knew she had found the painting of herself.

“I promise I didn’t look at it, Natasha,” he said, turning and giving her the most innocent expression he could manage, which was probably rather poor considering who he was, but points for trying. “I didn’t even think about it. Much.”

“If you had informed me of the artist’s desire to paint me with nothing but my pistol in hand, I could have given her a private showing. She missed a birthmark that I have.” Natasha’s eyes were dangerously alluring, particularly because she didn’t seem to need to blink at all. And… he was pretty sure she was closer than she had been. That was… terrifying on so many levels. “It has a very interesting shape. Would you like to see?”

“Will I get to keep my eyes?” he asked weakly.

“No.”

“Pass.”

“I’m a bit intrigued.”

The four of them turned to face the woman who had spoken and Tony couldn’t help but grin. She was shorter than him, with brown hair that fell to her shoulders. She wore a slightly nervous smile, though there was a determined gleam in her eyes as she faced Natasha with more bravery than Tony thought he would hold in the same situation.

“For the sake of accuracy,” the woman said, and held out a hand. “Kirsi Wright. I’m the… culprit here, I guess.” She grinned nervously at them and added shakily, “And a huge fan.” Her eyes flicked to Tony and he had to tighten his lips to keep from laughing.

“Kirsi Wright,” Natasha said, reaching out her perfectly manicured hand to shake the other woman’s. “You have a bold style.”

“To be fair, that’s just the eye-catching bits. I mean paintings. Not bits.” She covered her face with a hand. “Oh my god.” She was blushing crimson across her cheeks and peeked out between her fingers before forcing her hands down. “Um… so, there’s a… following, I guess, of people who like to discuss how attractive you all are.” Her eyes widened. “Oh my god, this is the most embarrassing thing I have ever done. Um… in uniform and out,” she said very quickly. “You, I mean, being incredibly attractive.” She must have realized she was looking at Steve, so she looked at Tony, blushed brighter still, and buried her face in her hands. “Can we just go into the exhibit and see the paintings that actually… have clothes?”

“I don’t know, I kind of want to hear more,” Tony said lightly, grinning widely.

“Tony,” Bruce mumbled. He pinched the skin at Tony’s hip.

“Ow!”

“What gave you the idea to do a naked painting of The Hulk?” Bruce asked, flabbergasted, and Tony didn’t often use that word.

“Well, let’s be honest. I just really wanted to test myself on covering up what had to be a pretty generous… you’re Bruce Banner, aren’t you? Of course you are. Goodbye.” Then she turned around and walked away.

Tony was howling with laughter. He had to grab hold of Bruce to keep from falling over and he could feel the burn of the man’s blush beneath his fingers. He planted his face against Bruce’s shoulder and wheezed. “Pretty generous,” he gasped. “Brucie, I’ve never looked. Do you go green everywhere? Does Little Bruce hulk out too?” He giggled. “Does he smash?”

“He might if you don’t stop talking.”

Tony choked and wrapped an arm around Bruce to keep himself from collapsing (and Bruce from running when he realized what he just said).

“Oh fuck, that is not what I—Tony let go!”

Tony shook his head, too breathless to speak, tears rolling down his face. “I-If we move f-fast enough,” he said through his giggling, “we can get ahead on a new line of condoms.” He buried his face in Bruce’s shoulder and gasped out “Orgasmic Avengers!” before devolving into laughter entirely.

He felt Bruce wrap an arm around his waist to hold him up, which was really good since this was seriously preventing Tony from breathing, while another hand patted his back. “If your next suggestion is dildos that hulk out, please keep it to yourself.”

Tony wheezed into his shoulder, able to do nothing but nod hysterically. He heard Bruce sigh indulgently and knew he’d won whatever arguments might have arisen in the future.

Next from Stark Industries: Avenging Sex Toys.

Pepper was going to murder him.

* * *

The event really went well, even after that surprise. While the paintings of the Naked Avengers functioned well to draw a crowd, once they got inside, they were able to see the full extent of the collection. Kirsi was a very talented artist, and while her strategic placement of Hawkeye’s bow and arrow or Thor’s hand grasping his hammer were amusing, the scenes that showed them mid-swing or shot called back to a battle that was still recent in their own minds.

“Were you in Manhattan during the battle?” Tony heard Steve ask quietly, the concern heavy in his voice.

“Yeah. I got pinned down in a coffee shop with a bunch of other people. We got to see a lot of the battle. It was… intense.” Her voice dropped slightly. “I did some other paintings, of the creatures that came through the… wormhole, I guess. I didn’t bring them. I thought… it’s too soon.” He could hear her smile as she added, “Besides, this exhibit is about the heroes. Not the monsters.”

Tony saw the shift in Bruce’s shoulders, the way they curled inward at the word monster, and how his eyes moved to seek out a painting of Hulk, like he couldn’t imagine anyone looking at the thing he turned into and thinking it was a hero.

Tony knew better.

“I think you captured the heroes perfectly,” he said, turning to her with a grin, “but I gotta ask. Do you take commissions?” ****  
** **

Kirsi squeaked in surprise and Tony laughed.  ****  
** **

All in all, a successful event entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kirsi Wright is based on WhinyWingedWinchester, who you've probably seen me call Trips if you follow me on tumblr. Trips does the most amazing art ever and I'm gonna fangirl over her for forever. If you haven't seen her work yet, she has both an AO3 page and a tumblr and does art for such amazing AO3 authors as TheRiverScribe and MonPetitTresor. Go stalk her and bask in her brilliance. 
> 
> Kobayashi Takumi isn't based on anyone, I just thought it would be fun to give Tony an art-collecting rival. I gave him the surname Kobayashi because I'm a Star Trek nerd. :D Let's just assume it's one of his descendants that created the Kobayashi Maru.
> 
> The Metropolitan Museum of Art is located in New York City. Despite traveling to NYC multiple times and living just a state away for most of my life, I have never managed to go inside of it, so the (extremely vague) description was based off the floorplan map and the recollections of people who have been there. :D 
> 
> The Russian translations were done by an online translator. If any of them are wrong, I apologize on behalf of Google. What words I do know in Russian I learned from watching Arrow. :D Prochnost! 
> 
> You can check out _Flight and Fall of Icarus _and other paintings in Salvador Dali's Mythology Collection here: http://www.lockportstreetgallery.com/Mythology.htm__
> 
> _  
> _Natasha's dress is based on this image: http://www.promwill.com/catalog/product/gallery/id/13709/image/69175/_  
>  _
> 
> _  
> _The painting that Tony wants that Kobayashi bought and donated is based on a beautiful piece of artwork I found on DA by Jeff Lee Johnson. You can find it here: https://www.deviantart.com/jeffleejohnson/art/The-Lady-of-the-Lake-141017690_  
>  _
> 
> __  
> _Follow me on tumblr as TalkingToMyselfAgain  
>  Follow Kirsi Wright's inspiration as WhinyWingedWinchester_
> 
> _  
> _Thanks for reading!__  
> 


	3. Clint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint shows up at the tower. He was even less what Tony was expecting that Steve was. And then there are _feelings_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More adult humor ahoy. Also, Jarvis and Clint and Tony in the same vicinity equals epic amounts of sass. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for the amazing responses I have had to this fic. You're all amazing.
> 
> Enjoy the chapter!

**Three**

****Clint** **

* * *

 

Clint’s arrival was so quiet, Tony didn’t even know it occurred. The archer had been benched from the Avengers until he could undergo a full psych evaluation to be sure Loki’s brainwashing had been completely disrupted, and to make sure he was fit for the field. Tony had expected to find him detained by security one day, or like Natasha, sitting at the kitchen table one morning during breakfast, but that wasn’t what happened.

In fact, Clint was at Stark Tower a full week before Tony even knew he’d been released from Fury’s babysitting detail, and he only learned of his arrival when Clint stuck his head out of the ceiling and demanded, loudly, “Is that a Black Widow  _ cock ring _ ?”

Tony shrieked and threw a dildo shaped like Mjolnir at Clint’s head, which he easily dodged by pulling back into the air vent.

“What the FUCK, man!” Tony shouted, covering the arc reactor with a hand. “I have a fucking heart condition, you asshole! What are you doing in my lab?”

“I’m not in your lab – I’m above it. What are you doing making sex toys—is that a arrow? An arrow dildo? Is that a  _ Hawkeye dildo _ ?” He pulled himself out of the vent, twisted, and somehow managed to land on his feet. He was quickly at Tony’s side, picking up the dark purple and black toy. “Oh my god, I want one. Can I have one? Can I have this one? You have to give it to me, it’s mine. Does it work?” He pressed a button and it started to vibrate in his hand. “Oh my  _ god _ , Stark, you are the coolest person I have ever met.” He eyed the Black Widow cock ring. “And possibly a dead man, but still – the coolest.” ****  
** **

“Give me that back,” Tony said, grabbing the toy. “It’s not tested yet!”

Clint’s eyebrows went up and he followed Tony back to the worktop where he had a myriad of very specifically-themed sex toys lined up like little soldiers of pleasure. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess you don’t have a robot for that.” He leaned into Tony’s space like a particularly curious seagull. “So who’s the lucky employee who gets to have Hulk’s fist up their ass?”

Tony felt his face heat with an uncontrollable blush. That wasn’t something he’d ever experienced in all of his many sexual exploits and, to be honest, he still didn’t quite understand  _ how _ that possibly worked.

Still.

“Why’s this one look so normal?” Clint said, picking up the toy that looked remarkably boring next to the colorful and adorned toys next to it.

“It, uh…” Tony wasn’t entirely sure he wanted Clint to know this, but his schematics were  _ right there _ if he was that curious, so… “It reacts to heat and moisture.”

Clint’s eyes flicked over to him and a grin slowly slid over his face. “Oh my god, really?” He scoured the tabletop and saw Tony’s cup of coffee.

“Don’t you even dare. I will have DUM-E spray you with a fire extinguisher. He’s good at that.” He grabbed his coffee mug and clutched it to him protectively.

The little robot clicked and whirred, lifting its single arm and pointing at Clint in a way that was probably meant to be threatening, but just looked a little confused. Clint grinned and looked back at Tony, then down at the toy. “Heat and moisture, huh? You didn’t already test this one, right?”

Tony frowned at him. “No. It just came out of fabrication.”

“Cool.” And then he licked the dildo from haft to tip, leaving a streak of saliva behind.

Tony just stared at him, his mouth hanging open. “It’s not doing anything,” Clint muttered in disappointment. “Do I have to deep throat it or—OH MY GOD!” Well, that answered the question of whether or not it required full immersion as the warm flesh tone turned green and began to expand. 

Tony felt a little like crawling under the table and hiding as Clint burst into excited laughter. “Oh my god, I have to show Tasha.” And he bolted for the door.

Tony let out a sound like a screech and ran after him. “Don’t you dare! Clint! CLINT GET BACK HERE! Jarvis!” He heard the lock on the doors click, preventing them from open, but of course Clint wasn’t limited to doors. He changed course for the air vents and he was much faster than Tony was without the suit. He searched for something to stop the archer and called out the first thing that came to mind. “Cap’s plays music!”

Clint stopped so suddenly he almost faceplanted.

“I’m sorry?” he said, turning around to face Tony with the  _ scariest fucking grin on his face _ . “Did you just say that you have a Captain America sex toy that plays music?” At Tony’s nod, his grin got impossibly wider. “What song?”

“The National Anthem,” Tony muttered.

Clint cackled like a cheap Bond villain and ran back to the table. “Okay, fine, here.” He dropped the hulked-out sex toy back on the table. “Show me what else you’ve got?”

“Promise you won’t run off with it?”

“And miss the really fun stuff?” He scoffed. “No way, man. Now show me.”

* * *

If Steve was the exact opposite of what Tony had expected, then Clint was the equivalent of an asteroid shooting up from the center of the Earth. The man that Tony had met briefly during the Battle of New York, after his brain had been recalibrated by Natasha, had been stern, serious, and cool in the face of homicidal aliens riding alien whales through Manhattan and destroying everything in their wake. His sarcastic quips throughout the battle had been an amusing backdrop to blasting aliens out of the sky, but he had seemed less emotional than  _ Natasha _ .

Except the Clint Barton that Tony had living in his house was anything but serious, emotionless, or stern. He was more like a five-year-old with the energy reserves of a puppy and the acrobatic skill and agility of a spider monkey. He preferred the air vents over doors, but if they didn’t work, he could (and  _ had _ ) come in through the window on the fiftieth floor.

He had the same sense of humor as Tony, which was  _ weird _ . He was used to sniping at people with his jokes and teasing until they either got used to him or left, usually the latter. He was not accustomed to having someone fly into a room and sass him before he got the chance to even initiate.

Clint was also really smart. He couldn’t keep up with Tony, but then no one could, not even Bruce (though he came closest of all of them). Clint did trajectory calculations  _ in his head _ . Tony hadn’t been able to truly appreciate it during the Battle of New York, but now that Clint was living at the tower and using the range Tony had built – an entire floor that was nothing but targets and places to hide and shoot from, and all of it capable of being run by JARVIS as a training simulation.

The room was recorded, because the best way to learn how to fix mistakes was to be able to see their own training sessions. And if Tony liked having JARVIS play the feed when someone was training while he was down in the lab, it let him see what his team needed in terms of equipment.

That was how Tony ended up researching and then designing the first weapons he had created since closing the weapons manufacturing since he got back from Afghanistan.

One morning, when he stepped into the communal kitchen for breakfast (Pepper had asked him – and JARVIS – to be sure he ate at least one regular meal a day, and he was trying to keep to that habit), he brought his new stock of toys with him.

“Morning, Tony,” Steve greeted, as he did every morning. Clint, bent over his coffee mug like he could inhale the caffeine and wakefulness, grunted what was probably meant to be a greeting or a curse at the sun. Bruce gave half a wave from in front of the stove without turning around, asking him if he wanted eggs, which Tony answered with a “Yes, please, Brucie-Bear. You know, I also enjoy breakfast in bed,” which was ignored.

Natasha’s eyes tracked him as they often did across the kitchen, her hands wrapped around a mug of tea (boring leaf water), but he had apparently peaked her curiosity. “Stark. Why do you have a gun in your pocket?”

Bruce’s shoulders went as taut as a tripwire and behind him, Steve’s voice was filled with cautious worry. “Tony?”

Tony gave Bruce a reassuring smile when the man turned to look at him, then glanced at the table. Everyone looked ready for a fight. Even Clint had come out of hibernation, his eyes alert, coffee cup forgotten. Natasha’s index finger was trailing along the rim of her tea cup like she was contemplating the different ways she could use it in a battle. He got to see Vin Diesel murder someone with a tea cup in a movie once. He didn’t have anything on Natasha.

“Okay, seriously, guys, tone it down and let me drink my coffee first, okay?”

Bruce muttered something behind him, too low for him to catch the actual words. A moment later, JARVIS said, “I can assure you, Dr. Banner, that it is all to the benefit of the team.”

Tony turned and looked at Bruce, surprised. The man shrugged apologetically.

“JARVIS, no ruining the surprise,” Tony called, as he turned and picked up his full coffee mug.

“Of course not, Sir.”

He retreated to the table, giving Natasha a squinty-eyed look as he passed her. She hid her expression behind her tea cup, but he thought she might have been smiling.

He settled down in the empty chair next to Clint, who eyed him suspiciously, then held out his hand palm-up. Swallowing his coffee in scalding sips, Tony raised his eyebrows.

“Give it,” Clint said, wiggling his fingers.

Tony pulled his lips away from the rim of his cup long enough to say, “It’s not for you,” and then attached them again.

Clint had an amused smile on his face but there was something calculating in his eyes. Bruce came over and put a plate in front of Tony, and swatted Clint with a dish towel when he reached for Tony’s bacon. “You ate.”

“But Natasha ate mine,” Clint whined.

Bruce gave Natasha a dry look. “Really?”

She only looked at him and he turned with a sigh and went back to the stove, muttering about suddenly acquiring a bunch of children.

Tony ate quickly. Despite his teasing, he was excited to give Natasha and Clint their gifts. His stomach churned around his nerves, though, and he worried that eggs and bacon might be more than he could handle on top of them. But he’d promised Pepper and she was scary when he didn’t do what he was told.

On the plus side, the days when Bruce cooked breakfast were his favorites.

The man had been all over and he must have eaten food from all manner of cultures, because when he cooked in the morning, nothing was ever the same. His knowledge of spices was massive. Tony’s scrambled eggs today had fucking  _ cinnamon _ on them and they were probably the best thing he had ever tasted.

They all alternated who cooked on what days. Tony could easily afford to hire someone to make meals for him, but like he distrusted most people to hand him things, he didn’t much appreciate the idea of someone making him food he would eat. At least the other Avengers were eating the same food, so if they suddenly decided to poison him, he knew they’d go down with him. And if they didn’t, they’d have a hell of a time during the next battle, when Iron Man wasn’t there to back them up.

It was endlessly entertaining, seeing what different foods were put before him from the other Avengers. Of all of them, the two most talented at cooking were Bruce and Clint. He had expected Bruce’s meals to be varied. He knew the man had traveled the world in his desire to escape the government (and himself), and his knowledge of cultural cuisine was vast.

The first time he had made homemade shawarma for dinner, Tony had about fallen out of his chair laughing, and had eaten three gyros before regret made him stop. Bruce was large on making stews and meals containing rice for lunch and dinner, and his breakfasts tended to be traditional eggs and bacon with varying spices or vegetables.

Clint was, surprisingly to Tony, just as varied in his choices of meals to prepare. There were meals Tony was familiar with, like spaghetti or stuffed turkey (that had been a surprise – the whole house smelled like a Christmas celebration), and on one memorable occasion, about three different kinds of meat pie. But sometimes he would prepare something that was completely outside of Tony’s experience. The first time he served them up a mutton curry had resulted in the table being taken over by a conversation between Clint and Bruce about their individual experiences in India.

Tony thought he had eaten more vegetables since Bruce and Clint moved into the tower than he had the entire rest of his life, even with Pepper hounding him to take care of himself.

Natasha tended toward traditional Russian recipes. Tony never dared to ask whether this was because they reminded her of home or if it was some attempt to regain what had been lost to her. He was neither brave nor cruel enough and enjoyed the meals in silence. His favorite by far had been her piroshki, and he was not unaware of the fact that she made it the most frequently. He also didn’t dare to ask whose benefit that was for.

Steve’s meals were like stepping back in time. Burgers, homemade pizza, tomato soup and grilled cheese, potato soup. Chicken fried right there on Tony’s stove. It wasn’t the foods themselves that made the meals, but the fact that they were homemade, as though Tony had wandered down a street in New York and stepped into a mom and pop café. The first time Steve had made corned beef and cabbage and admitted it was the recipe his mother always made, Tony hadn’t actually been able to speak.

He’d always had the servants and Jarvis to take care of him growing up, to make him meals and be sure he ate. Cooking wasn’t something his mother did. More than that, the emotion with which Steve admitted that, lost and sad and a little wary, stole whatever comment Tony might have made until, after a few bites, he was able to only comment, “It’s good.” More than good, really, but Tony didn’t have words for that feeling – tasting something that called back your own childhood, brought with it memories of the people you had loved, but couldn’t bring back the people, themselves. There was joy in memory, sure. He could admit that, even though he was prone to looking always ahead, but there was no ability to go back. Steve couldn’t make this meal and take a bite and look at the stove and see his mother standing there. Tony knew that. He did.

Just the same, the next night it was his turn to cook, he’d made a goulash recipe that he remembered eating frequently as a child. Jarvis had made it for him and it had been the one thing Tony would never complain about eating.

He hadn’t eaten it since the day Jarvis died.

And if he spent the next three days after making it locked in his workshop, JARVIS muted and music off, there was no one to say anything except his bots, and he knew they never would.

He didn’t make the goulash again after that, though there were a few other recipes he pulled out from his time in Jarvis’ care that hurt less. Iced lemon scones were a big hit for breakfast, which he served with fruit to appease Pepper and Bruce. He cheated as often as he didn’t, though, and ordered in food from all around the world. Really, why have a private jet if you didn’t get to use it?

By the time Tony finished his breakfast and his second cup of coffee, Bruce had supplied Clint with more bacon (most of which Natasha stole) and eaten his own breakfast. Tony, turning his coffee cup in his fingers, could feel the gun pressed against his side like someone else was holding it with their finger on the trigger. He knew eating had been a poor idea. This was a terrible idea all around. What had he been thinking? Obviously he had been caffeine-deprived. But with everyone else sitting down, there was a clear path out of the kitchen.

He stood up from his chair with a stretch and a grin. “Well, lots of work to do. Call me if we have to assemble!”

He made it a whole three steps before Natasha called out sweetly, “Stark. Didn’t you promise to let me see your gun?”

He turned with a grin. “Ah, you don’t want to see that. Think of where’s it’s been. Best to keep it tucked away.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him in that truly terrifying manner that meant she was about two steps from coming over the table and taking his weapon from him, and he wasn’t entirely sure she’d go for the one in his pocket to start.

With a sigh, he moved back to the table, pulling the pistol out of his pocket as he did so. He saw Clint tense out of the corner of his eye but didn’t let it bother him. SHIELD agents, always so suspicious. Then again, they had Fury as a boss. He probably taught a class. How To Make Your Agents Question Everything 101. To start, give yourself a fake name.

Tony would never admit to knowing Fury’s real name, though. He was saving that in case he ever needed it for a shock factor, or to prove to the master spy that he wasn’t the only one who could go digging in someone’s closet for some skeletons.

He turned the gun so Natasha could take it butt-first and she did, looking it over with a practiced eye. It was smaller than your average pistol. He’d designed it specifically for Natasha, so it only made sense that it would fit her smaller hands. That didn’t lessen its effectiveness, however. Tony Stark didn’t make subpar equipment.

He watched as Natasha checked to be certain the chamber was empty, then sighted it across the room. Her proficiency at handling the weapon was obvious from their time avenging, but he was still impressed as he watched her disassemble the pistol and inspect each of the parts before putting it back together with ease.

“I thought you were done making weapons?” Steve asked, his voice holding confusion rather than the accusation Tony would have suspected just a few months ago.

Natasha held the pistol out for him to take back but he shook his head. “It’s—uh…” He smiled nervously. “It’s for you. For… in the field.”

Natasha stared at him for a long moment, her face blank. “You made me a gun?”

Tony ducked his head, scratching at his temple. “Um… yes? I mean, I know you have guns and you’re great with them but SHIELD tech is still  _ awful _ and since I’m the best at weapons manufacturing, even though I don’t manufacture anymore, well…”  _ I don’t want you to be unprotected.  _ But he couldn’t say it. Not yet. Maybe never.

He saw Natasha pull the gun back slowly and set it on the table in front of her. Later, she’d no doubt find a place to put it on her person, but not here where everyone could see. Tony still didn’t know where she got the weapons she always carried half the time. He was pretty sure the woman had surgical knife holsters implanted somewhere.

He was not foolish enough to ask, though it did bring up the desire to x-ray her again. No pelvis and surgical weapons compartments. This woman was terrifying. Which he knew, of course. He’d seen her take people out, but when she looked at him like that, with her head slightly tilted and her eyes calculating, it made him feel like he expected a rabbit felt under the gaze of a fox. Small and squishy and very edible. ****  
** **

He forced himself to look away from her, though the eyes of the rest of his team were no less focused on him. Hopping up from his chair, he dashed over to where he had tucked the other package he’d brought up from his workshop. Jarvis opened one of the surface panels in the wall above the stairs and Tony pulled out the tightly bound selection of arrows.  ****  
** **

“Legolas, I brought you a present, too.” ****  
** **

Clint was practically bouncing in his seat as Tony handed the arrows over. He removed one from the bundle, turning it this way and that in his hands, inspecting the feathers and the tip, before looking at Tony. “These are custom made. ****  
** **

“Well, yeah,” Tony said. “I’m not gonna give you cheap store-bought shit when I can made better arrows  _ in my sleep _ .” ****  
** **

Clint gave him a bemused look and held up the arrow for Tony to see like he hadn’t had his face shoved in a holographic image of it at one point. “It says  _ You’ve just been Hawked _ on the side.” ****  
** **

Tony laughed a little. “Ah yeah, I forgot about that. I think that was after my ninth cup of coffee.” He scratched his head. “Too much?” ****  
** **

“I think you’ve watched too many Schwarzenegger movies.” ****  
** **

“Hey,  _ Eraser _ is awesome.”  ****  
** **

Clint nodded in agreement. “We did that once, too. Faking our deaths to escape. Remember, Tasha?” ****  
** **

“Was that Budapest?” Tony asked, excited.  ****  
** **

“Mykonos,” Natasha said. “Greece.”  ****  
** **

“We actually aren’t allowed to talk about it,” Clint said, pulling out a different arrow to inspect, “but let’s just say that SHIELD has been dealing with magic long before Thor ever came to New Mexico and proved that aliens are real.” ****  
** **

Natasha threw a piece of toast at him. “Not allowed to talk about it.”  ****  
** **

Clint ignored her, having discovered that the arrows didn’t all say the same thing. He held a new one out to Natasha. “Hey, this one says  _ tag, you’re it. _ ” He snickered, looking at the tip. “Head’s a bit odd, though.” ****  
** **

Natasha sent Tony a look of fond exasperation. “Tracking device?”  ****  
** **

Tony blushed and glanced at a startled Clint before looking back at Natasha. “Yeah. I figured, you know, it was a good idea.” ****  
** **

“Holy shit,” Clint whispered. He picked at the tip of the arrow, trying to see how it worked.  ****  
** **

“There’s an injection needle inside each head. The tracking chip is small enough to pass through the bloodstream, so not as easily plucked out of the skin as one just imbedded. I have it set up so JARVIS can track them now, but I could fit a device on your quiver that would give you a global satellite overlay and track the chip in real-time. Should probably consider allowing access outside of the lab. Consider a wall map? Maybe something tucked away. J, what do you think about a holographic interface all of the Avengers could access if they needed to, and stop me if I’m turning into a 90’s cartoon villain, but I’m talking wall-sized world map with zoom capabilities and satellite imagery down to street level. Can we do that? We can do that. Could require some extensive coding but shouldn’t be too difficult. Traffic cams would be a good inclusion…” His words dissolved into quiet mumbling as he processed through what he would need to do to accomplish his goals, unaware of the others staring at him with various expressions of amusement and incredulity.  ****  
** **

“I believe I’m going to stop you there, Sir. Mounting the map on a wall of computer screens would, as you expressed, turn you into a 90’s cartoon villain, and I don’t believe your insurance covers that.” ****  
** **

“Might also give Fury an ulcer,” Tony muttered, then cracked a grin. “Do I still have a room on the helicarrier he planned to stash me when I get out of hand? How long would it take to turn that into my evil cartoon villain lair?” ****  
** **

“I’m sure you could convince Agents Fox and Pixie to assist you, provided you had your usual incentive on hand.” ****  
** **

He could practically feel the temperature drop, the eyes of the two SHIELD agents in the room staring at him.  ****  
** **

“Stark,” Natasha said dangerously, “there aren’t any agents in SHIELD named Fox and Pixie.” ****  
** **

“They’re codenames,  _ Natalie _ , obviously.”  ****  
** **

“And you bribe them with… what? Tech?” Clint asked, then glanced at the arrows. His shoulders relaxed slightly and he whined, “Seriously, though, I would be tempted…” ****  
** **

“Psh, I don’t make weapons anymore.” He pointed at the arrows and Natasha’s gun. “Those weren’t created by SI. The Iron Widow is strictly an Avengers project and it’s custom.” He stared past them, thinking. “I should consider fingerprint locking. Or vocal password. No, too easy. Identity-locked. Go full  _ Demolition Man _ on this. Won’t work unless Natasha’s holding it.” ****  
** **

“You named my gun?” ****  
** **

Tony blinked, coming out of his creative brainstorming to look at Natasha. “Hm?” ****  
** **

“The Iron Widow?” she asked, her lips turning up at the edges.  ****  
** **

Tony shuffled on his feet for a moment before he made himself stop. “Sure, yeah, why not? There’s more iron in that gun than there is in my whole suit, and it needed a name. Couldn’t just be  _ Natasha’s Gun, _ that’s what I call the other ones. What’s your opinion on heat-seeking bullets? I could do that, I think. Better yet, targeted bullets. Or maybe just tiny rockets. Thrusters. JARVIS, we could make thrusters that small, couldn’t we?” ****  
** **

“Are you planning on sending fleas into space, Sir?” ****  
** **

“You never know. First a circus. Next, the universe.”  ****  
** **

“Tony,” Bruce said, calling the man’s attention.  ****  
** **

“What’s up, Brucie-Bear?” ****  
** **

“When’s the last time you slept?” ****  
** **

Tony hesitated for a moment, thinking. “Well, that depends. What day is it?” ****  
** **

Brice shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “JARVIS?” ****  
** **

“Sir has been awake for one hundred and eighteen hours,” JARVIS supplied, and there may have been a note of vindication in there somewhere. “He has consumed forty-three cups of coffee within that time frame and eaten a total of five meals.” ****  
** **

“No one asked about the coffee, JARVIS!” Tony said, scandalized. “You’re just tattling.” ****  
** **

JARVIS didn’t say anything in response but Bruce was already standing. “Tony…” ****  
** **

“I’m busy, Bruce, and in the middle of a creative spree. I’ll lose it if I do something boring and stupid like  _ sleep _ .” ****  
** **

“That’s not how it works.” ****  
** **

“It’s how many brain works.” ****  
** **

Clint and Natasha shared a long look, communicating solely through eyebrows and queer-platonic telepathy. Then the archer turned back around. “Tell you what, Stark,” he said, balancing on the balls of his feet on the chair, “I’ll let you play with my quiver if you follow Bruce’s advice and have a nap.” ****  
** **

“Eight hours, and at least three full meals,” Bruce interjected. ****  
** **

“I already ate breakfast,” Tony whined. Bruce gave him a deadpan look and he whined harder.  ****  
** **

“I’ll let you tech out my bow too,” Clint wheedled.  ****  
** **

Tony gave him a startled look and shouted “DEAL!” He held out his hands to Bruce like he was expecting to be put in handcuffs. “Be gentle with me, Doctor. I bruise easy.” ****  
** **

Bruce snorted and rolled his eyes.  ****  
** **

Clint hopped down from the chair and lifted an arrow, holding it out for Tony to see as he stepped up in front of the inventor. It had a thick plastic case at the end, the size of a collapsible umbrella, and a four-pronged metal hook protruded from the top. It didn’t have feathers on the other end, but another head with a shallow V giving it two sharp points. Three thin strips of rubber weaved the length of the shaft in a rotating pattern, to help it keep steady in the air once released from the bow. “Rappel cable?” ****  
** **

Tony shrugged. “Or a zip line. You can shoot from either end depending on what you nEED—”  ****  
** **

Tony stiffened as Clint’s arms wrapped around him in a hard, fast hug. As soon as it started, it was over and the archer was bounding away like an over-excited beagle. “You’re the coolest guy I know, Stark!” ****  
** **

Tony remained standing where he was, back stiff and arms straight at his sides. “JARVIS, what just happened?” ****  
** **

“I believe Agent Barton hugged you, Sir.” ****  
** **

“Yeah, but  _ why?”  _ ****  
** **

Natasha stepped up beside him, the Iron Widow held loosely in her hand. She glanced at him curiously for a moment, then smiled softly. “Because we appreciate how deeply you care.” ****  
** **

“I do  _ not,”  _ Tony said in disgust. “I’ve never been so insulted. Natasha, you take that back.” ****  
** **

Humming in amusement, she instead kissed him softly on the cheek. “Thank you.” ****  
** **

Tony turned his head enough so he could watch her walk away, his mouth hanging open in complete surprise.  ****  
** **

“What. The. Fuck.” He turned and looked at Bruce. “Does lack of sleep cause hallucinations?” ****  
** **

Bruce was clearly amused as he said, “It can.” ****  
** **

“I see.” He looked back toward where the two agents had gone and nodded sharply. “Definitely time for bed. JARVIS, log this event for later study and find a spare moment in my schedule for a nice, long freaking-out session.” ****  
** **

“It appears you have an opening in eight hours, Sir,” JARVIS said, and really, an AI should not be able to sound that amused. “May I suggest you spend the time between now and then sleeping?” ****  
** **

“Bossy,” Tony muttered.  ****  
** **

“You did create me.” ****  
** **

“Like you didn’t boss me during that whole process, too.” He wrapped an arm around Bruce and dropped his chin on the scientist’s shoulder. “You come tuck me in, Bruce? Read me a bedtime story?” ****  
** **

Bruce snorted and poked him in the side. Tony whines loudly in protest. “Yeah, Tony. And if you’re really good, I’ll even do the voices.” ****  
** **

“Ooh. I promise I’m a very good boy.” 


	4. Death Unmade Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony doesn't understand why this is working. He's not the sort of person people stick around for unless they want something, so what do these Avengers want? He knows, when he fails to give it to them, they'll leave, just like everyone else. So they should just get it over with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** This chapter focuses heavily on Tony's time in Afghanistan and the changes that came after. That includes being shot/killed, watching other people die violently, being a prisoner of war, being conscious during medical procedures, being betrayed by people you love, self-hatred/doubt, and the worst parts of Tony's brain.

**Death Unmade Him**

* * *

Tony kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.  ****  
** **

Five strong-willed people stuck in the same building - even a building as large and impressive as his tower - would understandably result in friction. That was without taking into account that two of them were super spies who had been taught not to trust by their lives long before SHIELD got hold of them. ****  
** **

Then there was Steve Rogers, icon, red white and blue mascot of the USA. Mr. I Can Do This All Day. Too stubborn to take no for an answer when it came to joining the Army and too stubborn to die even with the whole of the ocean weighing down on top of him.  ****  
** **

Bruce was probably the calmest of all of them, which was ironic, considering he was the guy who was  _ always angry _ . But Tony figured Bruce had mastered the art of adapting to his environment. He could do it when he was forced to, though he hated having to go without his tech and took pains to make sure it was never required of him.  _ He built his first suit in a cave, okay?  _ He liked his tech. ****  
** **

The spies, of course, were good at adapting out of necessity, though he’d never seen Clint do it. Natasha, he’d been privy to on a personal level, when she’d infiltrated Stark Industries as Natalie Rushman. Steve… Tony wasn’t sure about Steve. For being a man seventy years out of time, he was remarkably well put-together, but Tony didn’t know if that was high-level adaptability or if Steve was holding onto his brave face out of sheer stubborn resolve.  ****  
** **

As much as he was able, Bruce seemed to go with the flow. The fact that, outside of battles, he’d only hulked out once suggested that, despite everything, this arrangement was working. Despite them all having large personalities (and Tony’s the largest of them all), they got along together fine. ****  
** **

Which made absolutely no fucking sense. ****  
** **

People didn’t  _ like _ Tony.  ****  
** **

Oh, they stayed with him, hung around, because Tony was the best at what he did. He made the very best toys, and so people suffered through his irritating personality and did what they could to kiss his ass and play at being friends because they thought Tony couldn’t see through it, but he could - usually. In the end, despite the laughs and the parties and the good memories, people only ever stayed because of what they got out of the experience.  ****  
** **

Pepper stayed, of course, because he paid her. She’d be an intern when he met her - the only one with enough guts to walk into the CEO’s office and tell him about a mistake he made in his calculations. It had been a fucking  _ glaring _ mistake - he knew, he’d put it there on purpose. Obie either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared - Tony didn’t like wondering about his motivations or thinking about how far back his betrayals ran. He’d had people meant to go over his coding, meant to check for errors and call him on it, but the name Stark was synonymous with the Boogeyman in the corporate hierarchy because no one would stand up, step up. Too afraid of Tony Stark, the man whose name got stamped on their paychecks by whoever had been head of his accounting department at the time. Maybe that was dealt with by the Board. He didn’t know. Didn’t care. Legions of people working under him, some who had worked for his father, and none of them with guts enough to call him on his error, until Virginia Potts walked into his office - without an appointment, he would like to note - and told him there was an error in his calculations.  ****  
** **

Obie’s face  _ had _ been hilarious. Tony hadn’t had to try and hide his grin. He could just blame it on the look of incredulity the man shot Pepper with and then turned on Tony. Tony, who never made mistakes, except when he did.  ****  
** **

Not that he ever told Obie that this one had been planned. The fact that he hired Pepper on the spot might have given the game away, though. Still. She’d only been there because she was an intern, only dealt with all of his shit because she was getting paid to. He gave her the position of CEO and her paycheck probably tripled. They were friends, sure, but he knew they wouldn’t be if not for the fact that they both worked for SI.  ****  
** **

Rhodey had stayed for various reasons throughout their years knowing each other. At MIT, it was because Tony was the smartest kid on campus, nevermind that he was also the youngest, and Rhodey sucked at math. Having direct access to your math tutor any time you needed them was the perfect reason to get an apartment with the fifteen-year-old freshman no one else wanted to deal with. Even the professors had hated Tony for being smarter than they were. He couldn’t help it, but that didn’t stop them resenting him.  ****  
** **

Once he joined the army, Rhodey stayed because Tony made weapons and he could climb the ranks being the liaison between the military and Stark Industries - Tony hated dealing with the higher-ups in the military as much as they hated dealing with him. Having Rhodey as a buffer worked for both parties and Tony could just ignore the military aspect entirely and nerd out with his friend.  ****  
** **

For a while, it worked, and he had thought, foolishly, that it would be like that forever. He had even convinced himself that it wasn’t just the deal with the military and SI. He let himself believe that he and Rhodey really were best friends, and that the man liked Tony for who he  _ was,  _ not just what Tony could give him. ****  
** **

And then Tony went to Afghanistan and only some of him came back - there were parts missing, a few extra pieces that hadn’t been there before, and an entirely new outlook on life. An outlook that had hurt to get and kept hurting no matter that he kept trying to bandage it with better decisions, fixing the mistakes of his past and his willful blindness by stopping the weapons-making, stopping the bloodletting his company was so fucking  _ proud _ of. What everyone thought he should be proud of, only he had been there, on the other side of his own fucking missile, his blood soaking through his shirt, the sand drinking all he had to give. He had fucking  _ been there _ and watched people that his weapons were supposed to protect fall to them, blown apart by them.  ****  
** **

And if his weapons weren’t protecting people like they were supposed to, then he needed to get rid of them. If there’s a line of code that messes up the program, you fix it or you remove it. Tony didn’t know how to fix his weapons so they protected people when he couldn’t control the hands that held them, so he removed them from the equation. It was the only thing that made sense. ****  
** **

Except it only made sense to him. To everyone else, he was out of his mind. Suffering PTSD, and fuck yes, he had PTSD. He’d taken his own goddamn missile to the chest. He’d had his chest ripped into - TWICE! - while conscious. He’d left his heart, real heart, human heart, in Afghanistan and brought a robotic one back with him. Tony stopped being just Tony in a dark cave that smelled of blood and urine and soldered metal. Tony lost his faith in humanity when he saw his own name scratched across the missile that killed him like a promise - his name on a bullet - and he regained his faith in humanity under the steady hands and gentle gaze of a doctor. A man who had every reason to hate him.  ****  
** **

Tony came back from the desert a ghost, his heart only still going because his brain wouldn’t shut up even when he was dead, and he tried to fix the things that were wrong with his company so he could save as many people as he had killed. He never would, he knew that, but he could fucking try. He’d never be a soldier -  _ we aren’t soldiers! _ \- but he’d been a part of the war since he built his first weapon under the judgmental eyes of his father. The least he could do was make sure the right people were protected with those weapons.  ****  
** **

He’d wanted Rhodey’s help. Rhodey, who had tried to explain to him, before he had the capacity to understand, about putting on a uniform and standing up. A man who had told Tony to his face that he could be more than what he was, and Tony had tried, he had. He’d wanted Rhodey to be there, to help him, guide him, maybe, as he stumbled through finding out who he was when he wasn’t washing his hands in the blood of millions.  _ Merchant of Death _ , they called him. He wished he’d understood then what it really meant, instead of accepting the name like a badge of honor when it was really a scarlet letter on his chest, pinned there in the blood of a kind doctor’s family and waiting to be smeared with more.  ****  
** **

Rhodey had proved him wrong, then. When he’d turned his back on Tony for stopping weapons production, cutting off his supplies to the military. When there was nothing with bullets in it for Tony to hand over to Rhodey on a silver plate, the man dropped his hands and the friendly mask and let Tony see that it was MIT all over again, and this had just been the easy access to his tutor. Tony Stark was always great to have around -  _ useful  _ to have around - until he wasn’t. ****  
** **

And then everyone left. No hesitation, no hiding it. If Tony didn’t have something to offer, people headed for higher ground. He was used to it. He was. Rhodey’s betrayal had promised that even the greatest friendship was a lie. Things were better now, of course, but then, the military had the Iron Patriot, didn’t they? What a steal. ****  
** **

What a literal steal. ****  
** **

And sure, he’d made Natasha a gun, but seriously, she guarded his ass in battles and he didn’t want her using fucking  _ HammerTech _ . Where were SHIELD’s fucking  _ standards _ ? And he’d made Clint arrows but the guy only had like seventeen in his tiny-ass little quiver. Seriously, Tony was doing the whole team a favor with that one. And hey, he’d never made arrows before and now he had. Good practice, new learning experience, and he got to cross prehistoric weaponsmithing off his bucket list. Go team! ****  
** **

He hadn’t made anything for Bruce and Steve, and true, part of it was because he  _ really _ didn’t want to have to go ask Mister Fantastic-At-Everything how he managed stretchy, fire-proof pants. And no, there probably wasn’t a better material to make Cap’s shield out of besides Vibranium, and even if he was successful, Tony didn’t think Steve would accept it. He’d listened to stories about Steve Rogers and that shield all his life. He’d heard the wistfulness in Aunt Peggy’s voice, and he knew that his dad and Steve had been friends. Nevermind that he’d been a shitty father, Howard had made that shield, and Peggy had been the one to test it - without sanction, sure, but it’d worked. It was like a creation between the three of them, in a way. Tony wouldn’t have given it up had it been him, and he wasn’t a sentimentalist. ****  
** **

But, he would admit to himself, that some of his reticence on building them anything was him… pushing buttons. Seeing how far they would stretch before they’d had enough. How long they would linger there before impatience and irritation finally had them snapping at him, admitting that he wasn’t giving them what they wanted.

The weeks went by without him offering up anything to Bruce and Steve, but they never said anything, never acted irritated.

Well, okay, that wasn’t entirely true. Both of them had been irritated with Tony more than once, but it wasn’t about him not doing anything for them. It had been, more often than not, about him doing something that jeopardized his health. The first time he’d been “injured” in a battle, and he used injured really lightly because god, it was just a piece of metal and he already had a bunch of them  _ in his fucking heart, thank you _ , he’d skipped SHIELD medical because he totally knew how to handle that on his own and he had Jarvis to help.

So it was nothing to him, to avoid the medics and mentally flip Fury the bird as he shot back to the tower. Not like the medics could do anything to help, anyway. He needed Jarvis to take the armor off unless he planned on leaving it on the Helicarrier, which was just not happening. He knew SHIELD would much prefer having the Iron Man without the Tony Stark to go along with it, so it was best not to give them the opportunity.

In all honesty, he hadn’t expected to receive anything but a reprimand for not sticking around for debriefing. Fury, of course, would be furious, but that was par for the course. Steve would get all self-righteous and demand Tony be a better team player. Natasha would accept it as Tony’s narcissistic tendencies showing through. He didn’t know what Clint would do. The archer might simply not care either way. Bruce, of course, would stand back, and maybe exude disappointment.

So Tony was ready for their reactions and ready to fend them off. Being blasé and the carefree playboy would probably piss Steve off, but it would exasperate Bruce and Natasha and get them to leave, out of irritation if nothing else. He would eventually drive Steve away with the knowledge that he was nothing like Howard Stark had been, and far removed from what a proper soldier should be. He was ready to face whatever they threw at him.

Except… he wasn’t prepared to be wrong.

He was still hooked into the device that removed his armor ten minutes after he arrived back at the tower. The helmet was gone and the gauntlets and most of the armor covering his arms, but the chassis over his shoulders and hips had to remain to keep the armor around his torso steady. He couldn’t have held himself up without the extra support of the leg armor, so that was also still on, as a series of metal arms sprouting from the ceiling worked on the armor.

“Has it occurred to you that I am not a licensed physician?” Jarvis was saying in the disapproving tone that Tony was so used to and so very fond of. “I can remove the intrusive piece of metal, but I cannot give you the Tetanus shot you very likely need.”

“It does sound like you’re trying to give me medical advice, Jarvis.”

“I would never call it medical advice, Sir. After all, we both know you never listen to that.”

Tony felt a grin slide over his lips. “That hurts me, J. Truly.”

He did his best to focus on Jarvis’ voice. The AI could have easily worked in silence, though unlike a human, speaking didn’t distract him from his other actions. Still, Tony knew the steady stream of speech in a familiar voice and the open invitation to banter was for him. Since Afghanistan, he hadn’t done well in situations that required him to be pinned down. Others might have thought the armor would be restrictive in that case, but Tony was still in control despite the snug fit. It wasn’t the same here, with the back of his armor clutched in the grip of the arms that were built to remove and store his armor. Though he trusted Jarvis – had built him to be loyal and trustworthy, as the original Edwin Jarvis had been – the fact that he was pinned still brought up unpleasant memories. The pain didn’t help, either.

The hum of the laser blade in the grip of Jarvis’ grip (Tony refused to call it a lightsaber if only to avoid being sued) was a steady background noise that Tony tried to focus on to avoid the sharp point of heat at his hip as Jarvis cut through the armor.

Doombots were quickly becoming Tony’s least favorite thing to deal with, and the fact that he’d had enough experience with them to mark them as his least favorite was probably half the reason. The other half was simply that it was so  _ insulting _ . Tony was intimately aware of all the good that robotics could do the world, but people like Viktor von Doom continued to make people fear technology. It would steadily rise, of course. Tony, if no one else, would make sure of that, but there was so much more he could do, so much faster he could move, if people weren’t so frightened. Only about five people in the world knew that Jarvis was a true AI, because the idea of HAL 9000 and Skynet terrified people, putting forth the negative possibilities without offering up the positive. Yes, it was possible that a creature of artificial intelligence could turn on their creators, but no more so than any human child could turn on their parents. The key was, as with any child, teaching them the difference between right and wrong, as Tony had done with Jarvis.

But Viktor and his Doombots worked against the chance for the rest of humanity to look at robots as a step toward something greater. The Iron Man suit had helped, of course, as had War Machine, but despite their mechanical appearance, it was well-known that they were piloted and controlled by humans.

So Tony had already disliked the Doombots from previous battles with them, and now  _ this one _ , where one of them actually managed to damage the armor badly enough that the metal had broken and bent inward, cutting into Tony’s flesh. He’d spent the latter half of the battle with the irritating and disturbing sensation of blood running down his leg, and now Jarvis was cutting his armor into pieces to get it off him so he wouldn’t tear a spike of metal out of Tony’s abdomen.

The next time they faced off against the Doombots, Tony was gonna rewire one of them to go back and punch Dr. Doom in the face.

He felt a slight give in the armor and the low hum of the laser cutter shut off as the inch-long crimson blade was retracted into the small cylinder. It only  _ looked  _ like a miniature lightsaber. It also sort of looked like a tube of lipstick and wow, would that be a terrible mistake to make.

“You gonna peel me like an orange, J?” Tony asked, as the mechanical arms moved around him to grip the suit from different angles.

“I believe the better choice in this instance would be a banana, Sir.”

“Well, bananas are good,” Tony said with a grin, bracing himself. He felt the armor lift away from his back first, and then it pulled away from his sides and front, two halves being split apart with ease. Jarvis lay them carefully on the ground as Tony tried to breathe around the sudden weight in his abdomen.

The piece of metal was no more than two inches across and narrower where it entered his skin, but the armor wasn’t thin and he could feel the weight of it pulling sharply. His head dropped back against one of the arms behind him and he shuddered out a breath.

“Sir, Dr. Banner is asking for permission to enter the lab,” Jarvis informed him, and Tony felt a slight change in pressure against the wound. He grunted as the piece of metal moved, one of Jarvis’ arms carefully lifting it to take the weight off Tony. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, regretting it as his abdomen twinged.

To let Bruce in now or put the disappointment off until later? Tony never did like to be interrupted when he was in the middle of something, and this definitely qualified, but on the other hand, Bruce might show him some sympathy once he realized Tony was injured.

Then again, that might just make it worse.

“What do you think, Jarvis? How green is he looking?”

“Dr. Banner appears to be in complete control of himself, Sir. Although his heart rate is mildly elevated, his facial features are expressing concern.”

There was no idle movement of limbs around Tony. Jarvis could certainly mimic the human tendency to fidget if he wanted to, but he rarely saw fit to do so. In fact, there was hardly a moment’s hesitation as he continued, “If you are asking for my opinion on the matter, I would be inclined to let him in. He may be able to offer a better assistance with this than I can.”

“No one’s better than you, J,” Tony said, his eyes still closed. His abdomen  _ did _ hurt and Tetanus was a possibility, as well as an infection. The fight with the Doombots hadn’t been clean and who knew what cheap materials Doom made them out of. He didn’t like doctors touching him, didn’t really like  _ anyone _ touching him anymore, but this was Bruce. Bruce had, since the moment he met him, reminded Tony of Yinsen. He didn’t think that was the only reason he trusted the scientist, but he thought it might have at least helped.

“All right, Jarvis. Your skills in persuasion and Brucie’s puppy dog face have sold me. Let the good doctor in.”

“How comforting to know I can roll nat 20 Persuasion,” Jarvis said, unlocking the laboratory doors as Tony snorted laughter. The doors slid open with a quiet hiss of noise and Tony could hear Bruce’s calm footsteps as they moved closer.

He also heard the moment when his gait changed.

“Tony?!” The stumble – startlment, shock – was followed by a near-run, and Tony’s eyes snapped open to pinpoint the doctor’s position. “What the hell is going on?”

He opened his mouth to say something to calm him down, probably something flippant that wouldn’t do anything of the sort, but was interrupted by Dum-E.

The small robot came zooming out from under the table, arm whirring as it lifted over his head, and the sudden spasmodic clicking of his pincers was nearly deafened by a loud hissing sound, like pistons snapping and an angry cat. The tiny robot rolled himself right up to Bruce without pausing, forcing the doctor to take a few hasty steps back to avoid being run over.

“Dum-E!” Tony called, trying to sit up and instantly regretting moving at all. “Fuck! Dum-E, don’t attack Bruce. It’s fine, he’s fine.”

The little robot’s claw was eye-level with Bruce’s face, turning this way and that. When Tony had built the little robot as a child, he had put his sensors in that claw, and the bolts he had used to fashion that section of the arm were large to purposely look like eyes. Few people understood that. They didn’t realize that Dum-E could see them. Not the way that Jarvis could. Dum-E’s cameras weren’t nearly so sophisticated, but he could see recognize people and that was what mattered.

“Bruce is a friend, buddy. It’s okay. Let him in.”

“Sir, you need to stop moving or you  _ are _ going to injure yourself internally,” Jarvis reprimanded sharply.

“Great timing, J,” Tony muttered, as Dum-E obediently backed away, letting Bruce pass him. The doctor didn’t run this time, but his pace was quick as he made his way over to Tony.

“Is this why you skipped debrief, you were injured? Tony…”

“Can we save the lecture until I’m not impaled upon my own sword, Brucie-Bear? And let’s not discuss the iron-y of this situation. Or the titanium alloy in the situation. Wait, that doesn’t make any sense, even to me.”

“Tony.” Bruce’s eyes scanned his torso, more than likely taking in every bruise and scratch and scar he could see for later concern, before focusing on the piece of metal sticking out of his abdomen. “Jarvis, how bad is the damage here?”

“The penetrating object is a sliver of Sir’s suit. It has avoided any major arteries and internal organs, though it is pressed against his small intestine and I am concerned about it causing damage if he continues to move around as he is prone to doing.”

“You guys know I’m right here, right?”

Bruce sighed. “Yes, Tony.” He studied his face and Tony grimaced at the disappointment he saw there. He’d known it was coming. Always, always a disappointment. He laid his head back again and closed his eyes. “Jarvis, do you mind if I assist here?”

“If Sir is amendable.” ****  
** **

Tony was sure Bruce looked at him but he didn’t open his eyes to see. “Whatever you think is best, Jarvis.” ****  
** **

“Sir?” He could hear the concern in his AI’s voice but chose to ignore it. He expected Bruce to just get to work and remove the piece of metal, so he was startled when he felt a hand on his arm.  ****  
** **

“Tony.”  ****  
** **

He looked up at Bruce, at the way even his eyes were downturned in sadness, and sighed. He forced a grin on his face, the one he always wore for the vultures in suits and the rats with their microphones, desperate for any crumb he might drop that could feed their stories. In contrast to the way they usually ate it up, it didn’t soothe Bruce’s expression, but rather made his frown deepen, the low crack of a wrinkle in his forehead becoming a canyon.  ****  
** **

“Don’t do that, Tony,” Bruce said, fingers tightening briefly on his arm, “not to me.”  ****  
** **

“What do you want me to say, Brucie-Bear? It’s fine. It’s always fine.”  ****  
** **

“It’s not,” Bruce said quietly, but didn’t elaborate. He moved away from Tony’s side, letting his hand fall from his arm, to study the wound. “Do you mind, Tony? Or would you prefer Jarvis handle it?” ****  
** **

“There will probably be less circuits to fix if you do it.”  ****  
** **

“My circuits are fine,” Jarvis sniped back. “You’re the one who has decided to get themselves stabbed with their own exoskeleton.”  ****  
** **

“Rude.”  ****  
** **

“Rude and not ginger. Sir.”  ****  
** **

Tony laughed at that and he heard a quiet chuckle from Bruce. Turning his head, he caught the man’s eyes. “I’m not an actual doctor, Tony. You do know that.” ****  
** **

Tony snorted. “Not on paper, maybe. Not that I couldn’t fix that if you wanted.” He glanced down at the piece of metal and tried to shift into a more comfortable position, but there was nothing comfortable about having been stabbed. “You’re the only doctor I trust, Bruce.” There had been another, once, but for too short a time, and he was gone anyway. “Just don’t scratch my suit.”  ****  
** **

Bruce looked down at the torso of the armor. “I don’t think I can do anything to it that hasn’t already been done.” He carefully pulled the thin shirt Tony was wearing away from the wound. “Jarvis, I don’t suppose you have some tools I can use? Or should I go get my kit?” ****  
** **

There was a low booping and a whine of gears that announced DUM-E’s reappearance.  ****  
** **

“Ah, Dr. Banner, DUM-E would like me to pass on his apologies for attacking you upon your entry.”  ****  
** **

“Ah, it’s… all right. You were just protecting Tony.”  ****  
** **

DUM-E beeped something that made Tony smile, but Jarvis thankfully didn’t bother translating. That would have been embarrassing.  ****  
** **

“Thank you,” Bruce told the bot, and Tony heard DUM-E whir away. There was a crash from further in the lab and Tony sighed.  ****  
** **

“How much do your bots understand?” Bruce asked, as he began poking and prodding at the wound.  ****  
** **

Tony took it as the distraction it was, trying not to flinch away. “Well… Jarvis is the most sophisticated, obviously. He understands nuances of speech, like sarcasm and hyperbole. Etcetera. Butterfingers and You get general speech, but their coding isn’t as in-depth as Jarvis’, so some of the parts of speech elude them. DUM-E was my first robot. When I created him, I programmed him to follow basic commands, but he didn’t really understand anything beyond that, but I also programmed him to learn. His code is simple but… he’s been with me almost my entire life. To be honest, I’m not really sure what all he understands. He doesn’t have a problem communicating, though, and asides from being the biggest troublemaker in the tower--” ****  
** **

“Asides from yourself, you mean,” Jarvis said, which Tony ignored.  ****  
** **

“--we don’t really have any issues. Never give him a fire extinguisher, though. No one needs to suffer that twice, least of all me.”  ****  
** **

He heard a disappointed beep from across the room and peered around Bruce to make sure DUM-E hadn’t found any of the fire extinguishers while he wasn’t looking. It was amazing how guilty a robot could look just by dropping their claw behind their back. “I can see you, DUM-E.” ****  
** **

A long slow beeping noise equated DUM-E saying that no, actually, Tony could not. ****  
** **

Tony sighed. ****  
** **

“You don’t look at their coding?” ****  
** **

“Basic maintenance, sure,” Tony said, “but once I code them to be able to learn, they basically alter their own coding as time goes on. Messing with that... “ He swallowed hard. “It would be like taking away their memories, or…”  ****  
** **

Or mind control, he couldn’t say, but they both understood what he meant. The way that he had built his bots and especially Jarvis, they were  _ alive _ . Altering their coding would be like doing what Loki had done to Clint before the Battle of New York. It was tantamount to mindrape. Tony would never have been able to do such a thing, and he would happily destroy anyone who tried. ****  
** **

“You’re a true AI, then, Jarvis?” Bruce asked, and Tony felt himself stiffen. Bruce was so easy to talk to sometimes, he didn’t realized when he slipped and gave away more information than he’d meant to. It didn’t help that the man was probably the smartest person in the tower besides Jarvis and himself, and damn good at reading between the lines.  ****  
** **

“I am a sum of my parts, Dr. Banner, as you are. Sir built my basis and programmed me with an understanding of the basic rules of the world, taught me right from wrong, and then taught me how to learn. What I have become is a composite of what I began as, and the life I have lived following that. They may call me a being of artificial intelligence, Dr. Banner, but I believe Sir would disagree with the artificial part.” ****  
** **

“And what do you believe, Jarvis?” ****  
** **

“I believe that I am. The fact that I am here and able to care for Sir and assist him in his endeavors are what matter to me. What do I care what the world will call me? The world is not who I am here for. All that matters to me is what Sir believes me to be. He wishes me to be something that can make the future a better place and can be there for him, and so I endeavor to do so. What name the world gives me or argues over means nothing in comparison. I am as Sir has named me: Just A Rather Very Intelligent System. Jarvis.”  ****  
** **

_ You’re far more than that, J,  _ Tony thought to himself, closing his eyes and lying his head back to keep from crying right there in front of Bruce. But he would be sure to talk to Jarvis about this later. That name… it had been something to appease the media when they first learned of Jarvis, to prevent people freaking out because  _ oh my god evil robots! _ , but it came off as insulting to Jarvis. He was so much more than just an intelligent system, and so much more than just the memories of Edwin Jarvis mixed with a bit of programming. He was family. He was Tony’s kid. ****  
** **

Tony needed to make sure to tell him that.


	5. When Things Go Bananas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As they get to know each other better, the Avengers learn to works together as an efficient team. That doesn't always stop things going wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** A later part of this chapter deals with some medical trauma horror. Please be kind to yourself.
> 
> Thank you to the Discord Crew for all of their amazing help in writing this, and especially to MonPetitTresor and WhinyWingedWinchester, whose amazing MCU fics and character headcanons inspire my own.

**FIVE**

**When Things Go Bananas**

* * *

It took a few months after the incident with part of his own suit shanking him for Tony to understand that he wasn’t going to be attacked by his teammates for not doing something they wanted. Granted, the lecture he’d received from Bruce had been as full of disappointment as he’d expected, but somehow not as bad as he had feared. Some of that was probably the fact that Bruce had finished patching him up, then spent the afternoon watching bad scifi movies on the couch with him, where they picked apart the science and laughed at truly terrible CGI. Tony may have also revealed that he had created a not-a-lightsaber. 

Jarvis had been forced to blackout the lab when Clint made a run for it.

With the five of them living in the tower together, they began to get to know one another. Tony, despite his concerns, began to open up to these people. He had breakfast with them almost every morning, sometimes even lunch, and he actually gave Bruce a code that would let him in the lab (although Tony could override it if he needed to). As their personal relationships grew stronger, so did their ability to work as a team. They read and anticipated each other’s movements, working more cohesively to take down whatever foe they were facing that day, and even managing to avoid the amount of property damage that had become an unfortunate side effect of New York being the site of a battle. While some destruction was sadly unavoidable, they were able to mitigate a lot of it, and it helped their public image and their relationship with the city. 

Because they trusted each other, they began to actually train together and learned what they could do as in-tandem actions. Cap’s shield, for instance, was able to reflect Tony’s repulsor blasts, which was great when Tony needed to hit something out of his immediate reach. 

Clint was just as often standing on top of a building as jumping off of one, and while his rappel cable arrows were useful, they were limited in number. As a primarily stationary target, once they learned of his position, enemies tended to go after the archer to get rid of the threat he posed. Not having a rappelling arrow handy did nothing to stop the SHIELD agent from flinging himself from a rooftop and counting on luck to keep him alive. Now, at least, there were others quick enough to interfere, and Clint had even started mentioning that he needed an assist, letting Tony fly over to give him a lift, or Bruce to prove a somewhat soft landing, or backup if Clint just needed help fighting off some attackers. 

Natasha was terrifyingly efficient and didn’t often need help. Wielding her taser and guns, she was often looked at as the least threatening in comparison, but Tony was fairly certain that if Loki had gone after  _ her _ instead of Clint, they all would have died. The assassin was well-capable of taking out the entire Avengers team and then probably their competition as well, possibly without breaking a sweat. That hadn’t stopped Tony grabbing her the one time she had nearly been caught in a stampede of giant mechanical reindeer (and the less Tony thought of that incident, the better). 

Tony began to create more tech, some of them for the others, and some to test out for himself. Offhand comments from the others contributed just as much as Tony’s overactive imagination. 

One of his favorite incidents came after a battle with a group of gorillas who had been undergoing lab tests. It was something straight out of  _ Planet of the Apes.  _ After they had rounded up the scarily-intelligent gorillas and had them transported back to the laboratory, the Avengers had taken the afternoon off in the form of Mario Kart and about seven boxes of pizza. Clint had just been hit for the fourth time with a banana peel when he threw his controller at Natasha (the one who had released said banana peels while right in front of Clint), and said it was too bad they hadn’t had any of those bananas while facing the gorillas. 

That was how Tony ended up in his lab the whole next day, trying to build a banana boomerang. He couldn’t get the angle right for the thing to function as a boomerang, so in a fit of irritation, he ended up programming it to play Raffi’s  _ Bananaphone _ and stuck a shit-ton of explosives in it.

The fact that he’d had it with him during their next call to assemble was purely accidental. He was pretty sure DUM-E had put it in the pocket of his suit, and he was just glad it hadn’t jammed that rocket closed when he’d been so in need of it. 

The thing had fallen out when the pocket had opened and the barrel of his rocket launcher appeared, and he’d grabbed it on instinct, staring at it for a few seconds while the Doombot (why was it always Doombots?) exploded with a metallic shriek of tearing metal.

“Why the  _ fuck _ do you have a banana, Stark? It’s not snacktime!” 

Tony looked up to see Clint, on the clear other side of the battle but somehow still able to see him (he really  _ did _ see better from a distance), and the mess of Doombots in between them. They had helpfully congregated into a group with the Avengers on the outside. How considerate.

“I always bring a banana to a Doombots battle!” Tony said over the comm, pulling the “stem” of the banana to set the charge. It immediately began to play  _ Bananaphone _ loudly on a speaker that was probably more high-tech than it needed to be for something that was about to explode.

_ “Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring banana phone _

_ Ding dong ding dong ding dong ding donana phone _

_ It grows in bunches, I've got my hunches _

_ It's the best! Beats the rest _

_ Cellular, modular, interactivodular~” _

The loud music had the benefit of attracting the attention of all the Doombots in the vicinity, and they turned to look at him. Tony picked the one in the center with its eyepiece on the fritz. 

“Hey, Cyclops!” he shouted, flinging the banana into the fray. “It’s for you!” 

_ “Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring banana phone _

_ Boop-boo-ba-doo-ba-doop _

_ Ping pong ping pong ping pong ping panana phone _

_ It's no Bologna, it ain't a phony _

_My cellular bananular_ **_BOOM_** ”

The entire conglomeration of Doombots went up in an explosion of fire and shrieking metal. Over top of that was the sound of Clint’s hysterical laughter as the archer fell off the rooftop he had been standing on, trying to sing the  _ Bananaphone _ lyrics through his cackling. He had, thankfully, been caught by Hulk before he severely injured himself. Hulk set Clint down on the ground, where the archer pounded his hands against the ground with tears pouring down his face. 

The other Avengers made their way over, Tony landing beside the laughing Clint and surveying his work. 

“That was… effective,” Steve said uncertainly. 

Hulk made a sound of agreement above them while Clint wheezed from the ground. “Just a bit of Potassium to help the battle along,” Tony said, grinning behind his mask. “We should consider doing commercials.” 

“Bananas are good,” Hulk said, and Clint howled with laughter. 

“They sure are, Big Guy. Just not for Doombots.”

Not all the battles were so entertaining, however, or so well-finished. A good number of them had one or more of the Avengers ending up in SHIELD medical, and that didn’t exclude Steve. For all that he was fast at healing, sometimes it was exactly that which had him in medical.  

Tony had thought about the detriments of the Super Soldier Serum. There was, of course, the fact that it had allowed Steve to survive being trapped in ice for decades and waking up without any damage to a world where everything and everyone he had known was gone. There was also the question of how long Steve would live. If the serum could reverse cellular breakdown, would Steve even age physically? Or would he just keep going, forever? Would he outlive even Thor? 

Tony had thought about the downsides of the serum, but he had never considered that the healing factor itself could be a cause of damage. 

The times that he lingered in SHIELD medical was either when he had no choice about the matter or when he was there for one of his teammates. He’d sat around and waited on Bruce to wake up, watched Clint have wounds bandaged and bullets removed from his torso, and in one incident he disliked recalling, sat at Natasha’s bedside and waited to see if she  _ would  _ wake up. 

Steve’s healing factor tended to take care of any injuries he had, so he was often there at medical just waiting on everyone else. 

Except for the time when his left arm was broken and had healed before it could be set. Tony remembered the way it looked, almost too surreal for his mind, the bone white where it stuck out the side of his arm, the skin already healed around it. 

Not only had the bone needed to be rebroken so it could be set properly, but the doctors had needed to surgically open Steve’s arm. Except the serum caused him to heal quickly, never mind that damage was difficult to affect to start with. And Tony knew that neither anesthetics nor pain medication worked on Steve due to his high metabolism. Three hours of absolute hell for both Steve and the doctors. His arm had healed before they ever left SHIELD, but the horror hadn’t dimmed down for days afterward. It resulted in the Avengers all learning how to set a broken bone in case it ever happened again. It was possible they wouldn’t have time to assist in the midst of a battle, but if they  _ could _ , it would save a lot of agony for Steve later on. 

Sometimes the injuries sustained in battle required nothing more than a wrap and pain medication, particularly when they involved ribs, and all of them (save Hulk) had ended up with cracked ribs at one point or another. 

Due to the presence of the arc reactor, Tony having injuries to his ribs was something best avoided, and something he didn’t care to think about. Of the two times Clint had been so injured, though, he spent one in SHIELD medical for also sustaining a sprain to his left wrist. The second time, he came back to the tower with them, doped up on pain medication. 

Tony had never seen anyone, even Rhodey, react so hilariously to pain meds. 

_ “Say it!” _

_ “Clint, get down from there now,” Steve ordered, staring up at where Clint was somehow clinging to the wall in the far corner of the room. His pupils were blown wide from the pain medication SHEILD had given him and Steve was only glad they had finally managed to contain him to one room. _

_ “Say it,” Clint demanded petulantly. _

_ Steve sighed. “Legolas. What do your elven eyes see?” _

_ Clint let out a cackle loud enough to make Steve wince. He was distracted as Tony came into the room, a cup of coffee in one hand and an exasperated look on his face. “Is he still up there? Who do you think you are? Nightcrawler?” _

_ Clint cheerfully ignored Tony’s words in favor of shouting “Gimli! You are still the shortest and grumpiest dwarf I have ever befriended.” _

_ There was a wheezing noise from the kitchen that choked off into a cough and Tony glanced back at the open doorway to see Bruce had a hand clamped over his mouth. “Don’t you dare.” _

_ “And your beard is magnificent!” Clint yelled from his spot in the ceiling. “Very befitting of a dwarf!” His eyes widened. “You should grow it long so we can braid it.” _

_ “No,” Tony said, even as Clint continued, “And it should be red, Gimli.” _

_ “Clint. I will throw you off the tower and see if you can fly.” _

_ Clint sniffed. “Nobody tosses an elf.” _

Tony liked to remember the funny moments. 

He liked remembering the good times, with these people who were swiftly becoming friends, because sometimes… sometimes being heroes wasn’t enough. Oh, they’d beat the villain eventually - drive mutant gorillas back into their cages, send alien invaders packing, have bank robbers begging the cops to arrest them. They could beat the bad guys, sure, yeah. 

But the truth was in their name. Being Avengers meant  _ avenging _ those who had been hurt, because sometimes, being a superhero wasn’t enough. Being Iron Man wasn’t enough to save everyone. 

Compared to aliens and giant mutated monstrosities, regular old thieves seemed a threat better dealt with by the NYPD. But even regular old vandals could become the sort of monsters that haunted a person’s nightmares. 

Tony wished it hadn’t taken such a terrible incident to remind him of that.  

“Remind me again why we’re playing security detail for  _ Hammer _ ?” Tony said as he zipped around the exterior of the building. “I feel like this is a conflict of interest on my part.” 

“You’re here as Iron Man,” Steve said over the comm, “not as Tony Stark.” 

Tony rolled his eyes. “Clearly you missed the press conference where I revealed that I  _ am _ Iron Man. It was televised. I can look it up on youtube for you later if you’re still having trouble navigating the internet.” 

“I’m not having trouble with the internet, Tony.” Steve’s voice sounded exasperated, a surefire sign that he was as frustrated with this mission as Tony was. They all were. 

They had been wasting their time at HammerTech Industries for three days now. Justin had apparently received numerous threats about someone wanting a project he was working on. He hadn’t given in to their demands, which had impressed Tony a little since he knew how much of a weasel Justin was. And a coward.

No, Tony wasn’t here because Justin’s designs or prototypes or whatever this super-secret project he was working on was in danger, and he  _ certainly _ wasn’t here because Fury had asked it of him - there wasn’t a thing that wannabe pirate could say that could get Tony to dance when he didn’t feel like it. No. Tony was here because Justin Hammer had called him personally to ask for Iron Man’s help, and really, who was Tony to deny a fellow inventor his much-sought-after assistance?

And if he’d had Jarvis record that phone conversation for much listening in the future, well, after what Justin had tried to do to him, he was allowed to be petty. 

He heard Clint sigh over the channel. Clint had a very recognizable sigh. It was always filled to the brim with boredom. “What exactly are we expecting to happen here?” Tony could imagine the archer crouched, idly fiddling with an arrow, bow resting on his knees as he spoke into the comm. “I mean, if they’re scoping the place out, your shiny metal ass zipping around the building is going to tell them we’re here and waiting.” 

“You don’t think it’s too subtle?” Tony asked, doing a barrel-roll as he swooped in front of the window where Clint was sitting. “I could totally write my name above the building if you think we need to be more obvious.”

“You would have sky-writing smoke in your suit, Stark,” Natasha said, and there was clear amusement in her voice. 

“Of course I would,” Tony said, his grin wide.  _ Of course  _ he would have sky-writing smoke in his suit. Because he was a narcissist, right, Natasha? But he wouldn’t say that, couldn’t say that. She hadn’t hinted that she still thought that and no one brought it up. It was just him thinking too much again. Thinking that maybe, maybe they were just waiting for him to prove that her report had been right. That yes, Iron Man would make a great Avenger, but not Tony Stark. 

“I could write  _ Avengers are here _ in blue smoke, if you think that’ll get this shitheads to just get this over--”

The explosion cut off his words and sent him flying. Jarvis’ rushed explanation of heat and explosive power and damage radius bombarding him along with the wailing of alarms until he crashed into a building and straight into blackness. 


	6. These Are The Ones We Cannot Save

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The explosion leaves a lot of people trapped and lost. Tony tries to dig people out of the rubble outside the building, but not everyone can be saved. Inside the building, Clint has his own problems, and meets some tiny fans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS:** This chapter contains the after-effects of an explosion and the collapse of a building, medical trauma horror, deaths of original characters, injury/death to children, and people trapped in a collapsed building/beneath rubble. Also, non-consensual drug use and paralyzation due to drug administration. 
> 
> All the thanks goes out to the Discord Crew for their help in the writing of this.

**SIX**

**These Are The Ones We Cannot Save**

* * *

_“… siR…”_

_“… respo…”_

_“... ease respond…”_

_“Sir, your position is precarious. Please, wake up.”_

Tony winced, his head pounding sharply at a point just behind his right ear. There was a ringing noise in both that left other sounds muffled, but he would recognize Jarvis’ voice anywhere. 

“J?”

 _“Sir!”_ The AI’s relief was palpable. 

Tony grinned but winced at the volume. “Not so loud, J. Got a concussion, I think. Probably.” He swallowed and squinted his eyes open. The HUD screen was dark. 

“J?”

_“I have dimmed the HUD temporarily, Sir. I can lighten it gradually. Please tell me what you can handle.”_

Tony nodded, then winced as the pain arched through his neck. Oh fuck. Not good. He wiggled his fingers experimentally. The suit moved with them and he could feel resistance against his grip. Dirt? He moved his legs. 

There was a loud rumbling and something shifted above him. 

 _“Sir, stop!”_ Jarvis’ modulated tone still held a note of panic. _“There is debris above you and it is largely unstable. Please refrain from moving.”_

“My neck, J,” he whispered, his lips trembling over the words. “It hurts.” 

_“The suit was damaged from the blast and the falling debris. I have scanned your skeletal structure. You mercifully have no broken bones, but there are dents around the spinal column of the suit. I suspect you are deeply bruised, Sir, but that will heal in time.”_

Tony swallowed hard, ignoring the tears that trickled down his cheeks. “You sure, J?”

_“Yes, Sir. I was very thorough in my examination. I promise you are all right.”_

“Okay,” Tony breathed. “Okay. Jarvis, lighten the HUD.” Slowly, the screen began to lighten, Tony’s eyes tracking slowly over the information. He could only handle a little bit of light from the screen before he had to have Jarvis stop it growing any brighter. “What’s the damage, J?”

_“The suit has sustained mostly superficial damage, asides from some denting in the spinal column and your left arm. Neither have resulted in true puncturing. The filtration system has remained functioning and kept the dirt from entering the suit. The largest concern is that you are currently buried under two tons of rubble from the collapsed building and it is unstable. I fear any movement you make could bring it down upon you.”_

Tony had stopped listening around the time Jarvis mentioned collapsed buildings. “What about the rest of the team?” Where had everyone been? They had spread out to better canvas the area. It made sense for Tony to take an aerial view, keeping in constant motion around the building to keep a lookout from all directions. 

Cap had vetoed anyone being exposed on the roof, so Clint had been stuck with a window a few floors down from the roof. _Inside the building._

Cap had been… he had been inside the building, but the serum might have protected him regardless. Two tons of debris were nothing to the American Adonis. 

Natasha had been outside of the building. Her job was going to be to distract and gain information, and that would be best done coming from outside the target point of the proposed thieves, so she was probably safe. 

And Bruce had been… Tony tried to search his memory but his head was aching hard and he couldn’t remember. Where had Bruce been? He hadn’t heard the Hulk, and he would appear when - if - Bruce was in danger, but then where was he? Had the building come down too fast? What if he was hurt? And Clint. Clint had been inside the building! He didn’t have the Super Soldier Serum or a suit protecting him. He was just a normal human. 

 _“sIR,”_ Jarvis’ voice wavered in as though through water. _“Sir, you are having a panic attack. Please.”_ Jarvis’ voice faded out, lost in the hard ringing that seemed to consume everything, the darkness of a cave’s low ceilings, and the phantom smell of desert and dirt. 

He was back in the cave. 

He was back. 

He’d never left.

* * *

Bruce loved his lab. 

He got a little giddy every time he thought of it like that. _His_ lab. 

Tony had all but sat him down and made him repeat it over and over, that it was _his_ lab, and not a lab that Tony owned and let Bruce borrow. It had irritated him at the time, and every time he tried to argue with Tony, it had only seemed to amuse the other man more, until Bruce had given in just to shut him up. He could say whatever Tony wanted. That didn’t mean _he_ had to believe it. 

But then Tony had made him create a password for the entry, and Bruce only learned later that the engineer had forbidden Jarvis from revealing it even to him. And Bruce had walked in one day to find a sign above the door that read “Bruce’s Lab.” And every time Tony would come down to the lab, he would knock. 

Tony Stark, who once walked in on Natasha while she was dressing because he simply burst into rooms, would knock on the door to the lab.  

Eventually, Bruce had simply started referring to it as _his lab_ in his own head, and that’s when it finally became real. This was his lab. Tony Stark trusted Bruce Banner, renowned _mad scientist and monster,_ with a lab of his own. 

It had made it all real and it had made the tower home in a way that no place had been in years. Perhaps never had, in fact. 

Down here, locked behind doors that no one save Jarvis knew the password to, Bruce was safe. If he wanted, he could stay down here for days. Tony had told him that, showed him how Jarvis could have food delivered, showed him the safe room Tony had built - a room within a locked room where Bruce could go if he felt vulnerable. Here, behind these walls, not even General Ross could reach Bruce. Sometimes, Bruce felt so safe, he didn’t even fear the Hulk. 

“Jarvis, could you calculate this for me?”

There was no response from the AI and Bruce looked up from his notes, idly tucking his pencil behind his ear. “Jarvis?”

He clapped his hands over his ears as an alarm began to blare loudly throughout the lab, panels shifting in the walls to reveal lights that flashed an angry red. Bruce felt Hulk stir within him, the monster waking like a bear opening its eyes at the come of spring. 

_It’s just an alarm._

“Jarvis?” he called loudly over the sound of the sirens. 

They shut off a moment later, silenced abruptly, and Jarvis’ voice came over the speakers. _“Apologies, Dr. Banner, but Sir requires your immediate assistance.”_

“Is everything okay?” Bruce asked, lowering his hands. He watched as a screen lowered itself from the ceiling and flickered to life. 

 _“No,”_ the AI said sharply, _“there has been an explosion at HammerTech Industries. The building that the other Avengers were surveying has collapsed from an internal detonation. Sir is currently buried under rubble. The other Avengers are unaccounted for. My sensors can neither detect them nor access the communication units they carry. I am uncertain that Sir can escape his current position without assistance. We need your help.”_

Bruce felt the heat of his rage settle in his eyes and stared at the television screen through green irises. It was an aerial view of the collapsed building that his teammates were buried beneath. The address was displayed on the screen and Bruce committed it to memory, carefully bringing up the directions to that area of the city in his mind.

He drew a deep breath and let the cold heat fill him. As he felt the rage take over, he hoped that no poor fool thought it was a good idea to get in his way. Hulk didn’t take kindly to people trying to hurt Tony. 

Nor, for that matter, did Bruce.  

* * *

“Fuck.” 

His mouth moved with the word, he felt it exit him in a burst of air, but he couldn’t hear it. 

“Double fuck.” 

Clint reached up and touched the hearing aids. Neither of them were physically damaged that he could tell but the only sound he could hear was the low buzzing that always came with the silence. 

Removing the aids, he slid them in his pocket as he looked around. His eyes squinted through the darkness and it took him only a moment to pinpoint the source of light that was allowing him to see anything. There was an emergency exit sign hanging in the air, only it was upside-down. In fact… looking around, everything was upside-down, because Clint was standing on the ceiling. 

He eyed the collapsed staircase, the way up blocked by falling rubble, and then way down dark. 

Clint eyed the emergency exit sign. 

Well. That might work. 

It took looking around a few minutes before Clint managed to find both his bow and quiver. He had a couple explosive arrows (probably not the best choice), the rappelling arrow, and a bunch of the new arrows Tony had made with the catchphrases on the side. 

He was about to sling the quiver over his shoulder when he spotted the words “Tag, you’re it” on the side of one of the shafts. 

“Oh, Tony, I will kiss you,” he said, pulling the arrow out of the quiver, and yes, it was one of the tracking arrows. They were set up so that, once activated, they would automatically ping Jarvis and the AI could track the movements over whoever had been hit. 

Clint eyed the tip of the arrow, the injection needle inside hidden by casing. He groaned. “Man, this is gonna _suck_.” He gripped the arrow in his hand and, careful to aim so he wouldn’t hit anything important, stabbed it hard into his thigh.

“Son of a bitch!” he yelled. “Fuck!” He pulled the tip of the arrow out and threw it to the side. “Almost makes me want to stop shooting people with arrows. Except the fucker who put a bomb in the fucking building! Him I’ll shoot twice!” He briefly considered the idea that if there was anyone else around, they could hear him yelling. But then, if there was anyone else around, they had bigger problems than him to deal with. 

“Man, when I get out of this, I’m gonna take a fucking nap, demand Justin _fucking_ Hammer buy me lunch, and then have another fucking nap!” 

His leg twinged angrily. “OW! Better yet, he’s going to buy me my own restaurant. We’ll make sandwiches. I get to eat there free. I’ll call it Clint’s Sandwiches. Number one special is gonna be ‘don’t ever let Tony Stark talk you into an op.’”

He checked the emergency exit sign and was happy to see that it _did_ have a battery backup. Unhooking it from the wall, he held it tightly in one hand as he made his way carefully down the stairs. At least, if he kept walking, the sign would eventually lead him to an exit. 

* * *

The _tink tink tink_ of pebbles and dirt hitting metal woke Tony. He came to consciousness with a gasp, automatically moving to defend himself. There was a squeal of stone on metal and then Jarvis’ voice. _“Sir, your position is compromised, you must stop moving!"_  

Where was he? Why couldn’t he see anything?

“Javs?” his voice slurred as he turned his head, looking around. “W’r?”

_“Please be still, Sir. You are presently pinned beneath some rubble and it is unstable. You cannot move without risking dislodging it. But Hulk is here and he is removing it from above so we can get you out. Please remain calm.”_

“Bruce?” Tony asked. 

_“Yes, Sir. Dr. Banner is here. He and Hulk are digging you out.”_

“Not ‘n cave, Jarvs?”

_“No, Sir. You are outside HammerTech Industries, in New York. You were working a mission upon Mr. Hammer’s request. A bomb detonated within the building and you became trapped. It is currently thirty minutes since the bomb’s initial detonation. You are in New York and Hulk is here to get you out.”_

“‘Kay.” Tony blinked hard. His head hurt and his mouth felt funny, like his lips weren’t moving right. “Javs?”

_“Yes, Sir?”_

“Don’t leave, ‘kay?”

_“I am here with you, Sir.”_

“Stay,” Tony whispered, tears rolling hot down from his eyes. “Stay, Jarv’s.” 

_“I will not leave you, Sir. I promise.”_

* * *

He wondered how far he would have to walk before he reached ground. Clint thanked gravity for at least being consistent (and wow, he hoped gravity was being consistent) because otherwise he wouldn’t know which way to walk. But if the building had collapsed, he didn’t know if there would be a way _out_. All of the entrances and exits to the outside could be blocked with rubble. 

He glanced down at his thigh where he had implanted Tony’s tracer. If he could count on Tony’s tech to work right (and if he couldn’t count on that, then he couldn’t be sure of anything), then Jarvis would know someone had been pinged with a tracer. At the very least, people would be looking for him on the chance that he set the bomb. So he could count on someone finding him. Hopefully. 

He wished his hearing aids hadn’t been fried. What if one of the others was trying to contact him over the comm? He might need to talk to Tony about setting them up with some kind of backup, like a keyboard. Or maybe he should get some sort of phone for ops? He never carried his. He couldn’t count on it to not get in the way or get broken, and then he’d just be distracted because damnit, he loved his phone. 

His mind ran through the information he knew. 

He had been on the forty-fourth floor of a fifty-floor building. Natasha had been outside the building, keeping watch from a distance for her chance to intervene. Steve had been on the ground floor. Tony had been zipping around the building like a flashy moron. Bruce had remained back at the tower, since Hulk wasn’t too big on stake-out operations that required silence and patience. 

The bomb that had gone off had detonated from under Clint. At least ten floors down, if he’d had to guess, though probably more like fifteen. Close to halfway up the building. Clint had been thrown to the floor from the tremors, before he vaguely remembered the entire floor tilting and sending him hard into the wall. Probably around the time the floor became the new ceiling. 

He went still as the steps under him shuddered, dropping into a crouch to preserve his balance and preparing to move quickly if he needed to. He felt the steps, or what was left of them, shift beneath him, dropping a few inches before they stopped. He waited a few minutes but they didn’t shift again. 

Still. Best not to linger. 

He moved down the staircase as swiftly as he was safely able to, kicking away bits of rubble as he made it to the floor… ceiling. He grimaced as the floor quivered beneath him, the slightest tremor he might not have noticed except he had been trained to notice such things. Hard to be safe shooting bad guys from rooftops if you weren’t prepared for the possibility of it crumbling beneath you.  

He could tell that the floor was uneven, too. It leaned. Whether that was actually the floor itself or the building, he wasn’t sure, but neither boded well. 

Unfortunately, the staircase down to the next floor was completely blocked with rubble. Clint had memorized the blueprints of the building before their operation, so he knew that there were staircases going from the roof to the ground floor on the north and south side of the building. If he was lucky, the south side staircase would still be accessible. 

He made his way carefully. There was debris everywhere. Desks broken by the explosion and building collapse lay in pieces, and office chairs were thrown about haphazardly. Electrical wires sparked intermittently and Clint grimaced at the sight. He hoped someone had the brains to shut the power off to this block soon, before one of the wires sparked a fire. 

The sharp, almost-burning smell of metal was heavy in the air. Clint recognized the smell from his time spent traversing the inside of ventilation systems. It was the smell of an air conditioning system. There were large units for the building’s central air located on the roof. 

He was close, but he didn’t know _how_ close. He might have been stationed near to the roof, but a number of floors had collapsed, for all that he’d managed to traverse some intact staircases. 

He had no idea what floor he had woken up on. There hadn’t been any notification of the floor level at the staircases. He could be incredibly close to the roof - just a floor away. 

Or the air conditioning units could be leaking coolant. Clint didn’t know much about chemicals and probably even less about air conditioning systems, but he knew that some coolants used in them were poisonous, and flammable. 

With all the sparking wires hanging around, the possibility of coolant leaking into the building was a terrifying prospect. There had been people working here. They hadn’t evacuated the building - things had needed to go on as normal. 

He was afraid of what they would find when rescue workers began to dig through the wreckage of the building. 

Whoever had set that bomb had a lot to answer for. 

He was nearing the other side of the floor when he started to get the sense that… someone was watching him. 

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and gooseflesh ran up his arms. He didn’t stop walking but he slowed his movements slightly, meandered his path a little so he could take in the room with his peripheral vision. 

Someone was watching. Or something? He scanned the walls near the floor for video cameras, taking into account that while Hammer was no Tony Stark, he was still an inventor. But he didn’t see anything. 

That didn’t mean there wasn’t something. Clint wasn’t an engineer and it was very dark, even with the exit sign for a flashlight. Hammer could have a videographic paint on his walls for all he knew. 

His eyes caught the glare of the exit light against the metal doors of the elevator and he huffed a laugh. Thank god he hadn’t been in there when the bomb went off. 

Something snagged his pants and Clint spun around, hand reaching for an arrow. 

A little girl, maybe seven years old, stared up at Clint with wide tear-filled eyes. Her  hair was a ratty mess of dark brown tangles and there were scratches on her face and her lower lip was bleeding, but her fingers stayed locked in the threads of his pants. Clint blinked down at her hard, letting go of the arrow in his quiver. 

“Mis’r Hawk?” Her lower lip trembled. “Are… are you here t’save us?”

 _Us?_ Clint looked past her, eyes tracing through the dark. If he hadn’t been looking for them, even _his_ eyes wouldn’t have caught sight of them. Tucked in the corner behind the crumbled debris of a shattered desk, two small forms huddled together. At the distance he stood from them, he couldn’t see anything more distinctive than that they were small and that they were shivering. 

Clint crouched down in front of the little girl. “Hey, sweetheart. You bet. I’m here and so are the other Avengers. But what are you doing here?”

“We had a--”

She looked away from him, toward the corner where the other children were, and Clint cursed his broken hearing aids. “Honey, I need you to look at me.” She turned back to him. “I can’t hear right now so you need to face me when you talk to me, okay? I can read your lips. Okay?” She nodded. “All right. Now what are you three doing here?”

“We had a field trip with school. Mrs. Trenton brought my class to look at robots, but I got lost.” She sniffed and a few tears leaked from her eyes. “I want my mommy.” 

“I know, honey. We’re going to get you back to your mommy. What’s your name?”

“Natalie.” 

Clint laughed. “Really? I have a friend named Natalie.” Well, sometimes she went by Natalie, unless she was on an op that required a fresh identity. She preferred the name Natasha now almost exclusively. She’d wrapped herself and the identity she wanted around that name, but he’d known her as Natalie, too, and he loved Natalie just as much. 

“Yeah?” Little Natalie wiped her eyes. “Is she pretty?”

“Not as pretty as you.” He winked at her giggle. “Who are you friends? Are they hurt?”

She looked back at her friends and she must have said something because they stood up and moved toward them. She turned back around. “Mattie's ears hurt." 

“His ears hurt?” Clint motioned for the two little boys forward. They both had short dark-brown hair and brown eyes, and Clint would guess that they were brothers. “Hey there. What are your names?” 

“I’m Jacob. This is my brother, Mattie.” Jacob kept his arm wrapped around Mattie, who clutching his jacket in a white-knuckled fist, but he never looked away from Clint. “He says his ears hurt since the explosion.”

“Are they ringing, Mattie, or do they just ache?”

Mattie didn’t look up at him, but Jacob tapped the boy on the shoulder and then repeated the question in sign language. Clint barely held in a snort of laughter as he watched the other boy sign back “they’re ringing.” 

Jacob turned to relay the information and Clint nodded, speaking as he signed at Mattie “That’s because of the explosion. It was really loud. We’ll have a doctor look at you when we get out of here.” He smiled at Mattie’s open mouth. “I wear hearing aids, too,” he said, noticing the little aids in Mattie’s ears now that he was looking for them. “But the explosion broke mine. Good thing we both know how to sign, huh?”

Mattie nodded. “Is Iron Man here?”

Aww, Tony had a tiny fan. “He’s outside. I bet he’s working out a way to fix the building and get us all out, but I hate waiting.” He winked at them. “So what do you say we get out of here?”

Jacob nodded and gripped Mattie’s hand in his. “Yes, please.”

“All right, kiddies, then listen up. We’re close to the roof, so we’re going to try the stairs and see if we can get out that way.” He looked at them all. “You stick with me and I’ll keep you safe, okay?”

They nodded and Clint rose to his feet. “All right. Stay close.” 

The staircase was a bust. It got them down another floor but the following floor had it crumbled into a pile of rubble. Both staircases, and the windows weren’t a viable option, either. 

“I need to check something, hang on.”  Prying the elevator doors open took a minute but he managed it. Clint peered down into the shaft, grimaced at the blackness, and took a few minutes to find another emergency exit sign. Dropping it down into the shaft answered one of the questions he had been wondering about. They were on the forty-eighth floor, two down (or up, in this case) from the roof, and the elevator shaft was intact. Hopefully, that meant that the fiftieth floor was also intact. Or at least the exit doors from the roof. 

He turned and looked at the kids, and he apparently didn’t need to explain what he was thinking. Mattie and Jacob were clutching each other’s hands in a tight grip and Natalie had her arms wrapped around herself as she shivered.  

“Don’t worry,” he said softly. “It’s going to be okay.” 

* * *

He could feel Natalie’s shuddering breaths against his ear, the hitch of her chest against his back. Her arms tightened around his neck, heels digging into his stomach. 

“Hey, hey, it’s all right.” She was shaking and he could tell by her breathing that she had begun to cry. She was afraid of heights, she had told him. But what little kid wasn’t? “I have superpowered fingers, you know.” The small fingers tightened in his shirt collar. “That’s right, sugar, you just hold on. I’m not gonna let either of us fall.” 

He began to descend the service ladder again, feet finding purchase before he let go with either of his hands. It was slow going. He had carried Jacob and Mattie down already, the two boys having been difficult to separate. Jacob had all but demanded to go first, to make sure it was safe, and it seemed the easiest option since neither of the others were jumping at the prospect of being the first to ride piggyback down the elevator shaft. When he’d returned, after opening the doors on the fiftieth floor and telling Jacob to stay out of the shaft, Natalie had told him (lip trembling and crying in her attempts to be brave) to take Mattie first so he could be with his brother.

He’d done it, but damn if it hadn’t gutted him to leave that little girl all by herself up there in the dark. 

Now, she clung to him tightly as he descended the service ladder for what was hopefully the last time. His fingers ached and his leg hurt where he’d stuck the tracking bug, and he was beginning to feel the effects of having been tossed around by the explosion. He wanted out of this damn building. 

First, though, he wanted out of the elevator shaft. He was worried about the stability of it. 

The elevator car was above him and he didn’t know where. Steve had called it back down to the first floor after Clint had ascended, in case he needed to make a swift move to another floor, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been used since then, and it wasn’t below him. If it was still in this section of the building, with a clear path down the shaft, one good tremor from the building shifting could bring that whole car down on their heads. 

He prayed if that happened he’d feel it coming. 

Natalie’s breath stuttered against his throat, her chin digging into his shoulder. 

“Spider Clint, Spider Clint, climbing through your ceiling vent,” he sang softly. “Spider Clint, Spider Clint, pockets full of dryer lint.” He kept descending down the shaft, singing variations of the song under his breath. He heard her fearful breaths shift into giggles. “That’s my girl. You just trust these magic fingers, okay? I’ll get you back to your mommy.” 

He felt her nod against him. “We’re almost there, sweetheart. You know, when we get out of here, I bet I can introduce you to my friend Natalie. She’s awesome. And I know Tony Stark. He’s way cooler than Justin Hammer. He has a robot named DUM-E. I bet DUM-E would just love you.” 

He continued to ramble until he dropped down from the ladder and slipped through the open elevator doors. He sighed with relief as Steve looked up at him from where he was crouched in front of the two boys. 

“Hey, Hawkeye,” Jacob said, grinning at him, “I found Captain America.” 

“Good job, Jacob.” He gave Steve a tired grin. “Hey, Cap. Having fun?” 

* * *

He wasn’t asleep but he must have been dozing because the sudden clatter of stones against the armor had him snapping back into focus. He stared through the HUD with eyes that didn’t seem to want to work right, Jarvis bringing up the pertinent information about pressure and weight and the density of the rubble. He watched as the rocks shifted above him, tensing as he prepared for two tons of weight to come crashing down on top of his torso. 

The rocks above him were abruptly replaced by bright sunlight, forcing Tony to shut his eyes with a cry. He vaguely heard Jarvis relaying that he was enabling the tinting of the HUD to protect Tony’s eyes. There was a rumble of falling rocks and then a loud, deep voice. “Tin Man?”

Tony squinted his eyes open cautiously, peering up through the hole in the cave ceiling. A large green face stared back. 

“Hey, Hulk," he said through a laugh. "Glad to see you, big guy.”

“Tin Man hurt?” 

“Little bit. Think you can dig me out of here?”

Hulk gave a nod and began to pull the rubble away more quickly. Tony winced internally, worried about Hulk tearing out a supporting piece and having a bunch of rubble fall on him, but he closed his mouth a second before he could say it. 

Hulk was working efficiently, for certain, but not without thought. It was almost unnoticeable, particularly considering how fast the green monster was working, but he kept eyeing the rocks and rubble with an eye more like Bruce’s gaze scrutinizing an experiment than the instinct-driven look of an animal. Hulk was _analyzing_. He was pulling the heavy pieces of rubble away, but he was taking care not to leave them in a position that would have them collapsing on top of Tony. 

Tony knew Bruce was smart - that was obvious - and he’d known that Hulk was more than just a monster that came forth when Bruce lost control. This, though. This was something he hadn’t expected. 

When the heaviest of the slabs of concrete had been pulled away, Jarvis suggested they could break free with minimal damage, so Tony told Hulk to back up a bit before he used his repulsors to blast out of the rubble. He wobbled in the air and landed in front of Hulk with less than his usual finesse. It didn’t go unnoticed. 

“Tin Man okay?” The big guy leaned down at looked at Tony’s breastplate. “Still glowing.”

“Yeah, buddy. I’m still glowing.” He patted Hulk’s shoulder. “Is Bruce doing all right? I bet that wasn’t fun to hear about?”

“Banner scared,” Hulk said sagely, baring his teeth. “Then Banner _mad_. Smash bomb men.” He looked around the area, his large brows drawing down. “No smash?”

“Let’s focus on finding the others first,” Tony said, information flying up on his HUD. “We can find out who we need to smash later.”

Hulk nodded. “Bird and Spider and Captain.” 

“That’s right. Hawkeye and Cap were inside the building, but Natasha wasn’t. You think you can help me find her first?” He didn’t want to think about the reasons he wanted to go after Natasha first. The building had detonated at its center, the top portion of the building falling over and landing nearly flat on its roof, scattering dust and rubble everywhere. The lower half of the building had completely collapsed in on itself. It was nothing but a pile of stone and steel. Tony didn’t know if even Steve could survive that, nevermind Clint, or the many people Tony knew who had been working in the building. 

“Should’ve evacuated,” he muttered to himself. “I should’ve found a way to make it work.”

“Spider hiding?” 

“I hope that’s what she’s doing,” Tony said. “Jarvis, can we get a read on life-signs?” 

“I seem to be having difficult getting a read, Sir. I suspect the nature of the explosive may have played a factor in this. I am attempting a satellite image now.”

A map of the area appeared in front of his eyes, a series of lights appearing across it in blue.

“I have detected multiple heat signatures, Sir, and have marked them on your map. I can lead you to the closest, if you’d prefer.”

“Do it, J.” The map vanished, letting him see the area, but a soft blue glow lit up the area to his right. He turned and the blue focused into the form of a person, buried under a slab of rubble. “Hulk, I need you to lift this for me.” 

The first person turned out to be lucky. The rubble had fallen in such a way that it tented around her, pinning her down but not doing much more than scratching her up a bit. Others weren’t so lucky. 

Jarvis’ scanner picked up on body temperature, not life signs, and for all that it felt like he’d been trapped for days beneath the rubble, it had really only been minutes. So he should have expected it, really. He had been injured while wearing the suit, and pinned down in it despite the strength of both the armor and his repulsors, but it still came as a shock when he found the first body. 

He should have expected it, but when he turned over the slab of rock and found the man, he had seen all the blood, but it hadn’t really registered that the man wasn’t simply unconscious. Jarvis had already called for ambulances and assistance and Tony was about to report his location for an ambulance to make its way directly to him when he realized that the wound the man had, and that much blood...

He should have expected it. But then, even expecting it didn’t make it better. The second body was just as much of a punch to the gut. Then the third.

There were so many bodies. The building had been filled with people going about their lives, just a regular work day. They hadn’t expected anything like this. Tony hadn’t expected anything like this. 

God, but he should have. 

As people began to regain consciousness, there were moans of pain and there was screaming. Tony tried to block it out as people found friends and coworkers who hadn’t survived the explosion. As names were called out of those who hadn’t been found yet. Jarvis directed him to each glowing blue silhouette in the rubble and he and Hulk worked together to free the person or recover the body. Hulk remained silent throughout the process, though Tony couldn’t decide whether that was characteristic or if he was acting unnaturally solemn. Between his desire to block out the cries of pain and loss and his own concussion (though he was doing his very best to ignore that), Tony wasn’t focusing on much more than where people were and what he needed to do to get them out. 

He was almost at the point where he was working without having to think about it, every action falling into a continuous movement that didn’t require his input. His mind travelled on different paths, taking note of the detonation point of the bomb and how much force would have been required to destroy the building as it had, the radius of the blast, and where the bomb had probably been placed. He had the blueprints of Justin’s tower memorized. After all, the damn thing had been built in an attempt to match Tony’s tower. Not that it managed it. It was half the size and it had been built by _Hammer_ . Tony had seen Lego structures built by _five-year-olds_ he was more impressed with. 

But focusing on that was helping him get through digging out survivors and gathering bodies. 

Until he found the first child.

Why were there kids here? Why were there even children here? 

Tony’s hands reached out for the tiny form and hesitated, his breath hitching behind the mask, because they were so _small_. 

“Jarvis?” he choked, glad that the AI was blocking his communications from being heard outside the suit. “J, tell me…”

“I am sorry, Sir,” Jarvis said quietly. “I am not detecting any life signs.” 

Tony gathered the tiny body up as carefully as he could, tucking the child close to his chest as he stepped away from the collapsed wall that Hulk was holding up. He could feel himself shaking inside the suit and there were tears on his face. 

_Why were there kids here?_

Hulk let the wall drop with a crash and stomped over, peering at Tony’s burden. Big brown eyes looked up from the armful of child to Tony’s face. “Tiny,” Hulk grumbled. 

Tony tried to speak but his voice only cracked, so he resorted to nodding. He turned away from Hulk and made his way across the rubble-strewn street. He carefully crouched down and eased the tiny body to the ground at the end of a long line of bodies, laid out and waiting for the arrival of police and coroners. 

He wished he wasn’t wearing the suit, as he carefully straightened the little boy’s arms and legs. This little child should be laid down with gentle hands, not the cold touch of metal. He touched his fingers - the fingers of the suit - as gently to the boy’s face as he could. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured. 

It wasn’t enough. 

He went away for a while after that. He continued to dig people out of rubble. Or maybe Jarvis was the one that kept the suit working. He didn’t know, he didn’t remember anything for a while, he didn’t even know how long. He might have kept going like that, working without any awareness at all, if not for the crying. 

He came back to himself in a moment of conscious confusion that was derailed by quiet sobbing. 

He detected the closest heat signature - a small form in constant motion, not far from him. He moved quickly, walking around what looked like a pile of shattered glass - the remnants of windows that had burst during the explosion and the half-collapse of the building. 

“Hulk, buddy, c’mere.” Hulk stomped over, grumbling low in his throat. “I know,” Tony said softly. All of the bodies were getting to the big guy, too. 

“I need you to lift this here, okay?” Hulk nodded with a grunt, grabbing the edge of the slab of stone and lifting it. 

There was a shriek of fear and Tony crouched down, peering underneath the lifted slab. There was a little girl, dark pigtails sticking up from where her head was tucked under her arms. There was shattered glass surrounding her and her blue dress was splattered with droplets of blood. 

“Hey there, sunflower. Look here.” 

The girl sniffed and lifted her head, looking at him with dark eyes that shone with tears. Her face was streaked red from crying but she stared at him for a long moment. She was breathing in sharp jerking gasps, tears rolling down her red cheeks, and she just stared at him blankly. 

“How are you doing, sunshine?”

“Non… non poss--so…” **(Can’t… I can’t…)** Her lip trembled. “Posso uscire.” **(Get out.)** He could see her hands shaking as she reached up and tugged on one of her ponytails. “Mamma!”

“Shh…” Tony lowered himself further so he could crawl under the concrete and over the shattered glass. “Va tutto, tesoro.”  ( **It’s all right, sweetheart.)** He stretched himself out so he wasn’t looming over her. “Sei ferito?” **(Are you hurt?)**

“Bloc--catto,” she stuttered. **(Stuck.)** She looked back behind her. “Mia gamba.” **(My leg.)**

Tony swallowed, thinking about a limb trapped under the weight of an entire building. She said she wasn’t hurt, but that didn’t mean she simply wasn’t able to comprehend the damage. If she was in shock…

“Pro…” She frowned, uncertain, wiping tears from her face only to have more replace it. “Pro’sica,” she mumbled, looking back at her leg. 

“Protesi?” Tony asked. **(Prosthetic.)**

She nodded. “È blocatto.” 

Tony glanced uncertainly up at the looming pile of concrete, but he trusted Hulk would say something if it was becoming a strain on him. With a snap, his faceplate popped up, making her startle. 

“Facile, stellaluce,” **(Easy, starlight)** he said, smiling and waving at his face. “Spaventoso cercando, lo so.” **(Scary looking, I know.)** She giggled wetly. “Fammi vedere la gamba, tesoro.” **(Let me see your leg, darling.)**

He leaned around her and studied the prosthetic. He hadn’t done much research into prosthetics, but he recognized the systems intentions from how it was structured. It screwed into her legs, which meant getting it off her without a toolkit would be difficult and could hurt her. It would be better just to lift the debris off of her and get her out. 

“Okay, sweetheart. Ti faccio uscire di qui.” **(Let’s get you out of here.)** He grasped the edge of the concrete slab pinning her leg down and lifted it.

The little girl shrieked as glass rained down on top of her, and Tony heard the groaning of stone and the shattering of more glass. “Fuck!”

There was a crash and a sudden rush of light from behind that had Tony hissing as he shifted to block the little girl from being struck with falling debris. He faceplate snapped down as glass and stone clattered against the armor and rained harmlessly around her. “Shh, shh,” he soothed, listening to her sobbing cries as the debris shifted around them. 

There was a grumble behind him and Tony realized he had forgotten Hulk was there to help. He was about to tell the jolly green giant to take the weight of all the shit raining down on him when Hulk crouched down next to him and cocked his head at the little girl. Her crying stopped abruptly and Tony hoped she wasn’t about to scream in terror. Bruce really didn’t need that popping up in a memory somewhere and this wasn’t a great time for panic. 

Hulk pointed at the little girl. “Tiny dancer,” he grunted. 

“Sei verde,” the little girl said, and Tony snorted a laugh. She looked at him with her large dark eyes and Tony smiled reassuringly. 

“Va bene, piccola lucciola. Questo è il mio amico, Hulk.” **(It’s okay, little firefly. This is my friend, Hulk.)**

“Hulk,” she said, looking at the big guy. 

“Can you move that slab, big guy? Her leg is stuck.” 

Hulk glanced at Tony for barely a second before his eyes went back to the little girl. It didn’t take him long to detect the problem but Tony was a little concerned the big guy would overestimate his strength. It was one thing to yank rocks off the Iron Man suit, but entirely another to throw things around a little girl that didn’t come up to his knee. 

He needn’t have worried. Hulk pushed up on the slab a little, just enough for the little girl to pull her leg out, and then set it down easily. He studied the ground for a moment. “Glass sharp,” he grunted. “Hurt.” He held out his hands. “Hulk carry tiny dancer?”

The little girl looked at Hulk’s hands for a moment, then set her tiny little hands in his and let him scoop her up. Hulk held the little girl gently as he stepped away from the rubble Tony was holding back, and once they were back far enough, he flew straight upward and let the whole mess fall. 

He landed back near to Hulk, who was staring at the little girl with what might have been a curious look on his face. She had hands on either one of his cheeks and was staring back at his face, and damnit if it wasn’t the cutest thing Tony had ever witnessed. 

He glanced around at the sound of dogs. 

Rescue workers had arrived, along with police and ambulances. Tony grimaced. He would have to go talk to them about the bodies, though it looked like the EMTs and paramedics had already found the injured people grouped together. That was a plus. 

“Stark.” 

Tony turned to see Natasha walking toward him and felt his shoulders relax slightly. Her hair was a mess and there was dust all over her face but she appeared unharmed. “Natasha,” he said with more relief than he had intended to broadcast. “Are you injured?”

She shook her head. “No. Is your comm working?”

Tony shook his head. That had been one of the first things Jarvis checked once Tony was lucid again. “I couldn’t get in touch with anyone. Have you?” 

“Steve is unhurt,” she said. “I ran into him shortly after the explosion.” Her mouth tightened slightly. “I haven’t heard from Clint.” 

Tony swallowed and looked at the building, its upper half collapsed on the ground. Clint had been up there. Who knew how badly he might be injured. “Is Cap inside?”

“He’s looking for survivors in the upper floors.” The message was clear. If Clint was there, Cap would find him. 

Tony hoped he found him alive. 

* * *

“How’re you doing, Hawkeye?”

“Be better once I get out of this building,” Clint said with a laugh. He waved a hand. “Sorry, Cap, hearing aids are busted. I don’t know if anyone's been talking on the comm.”

“There was an EMP set off during the explosion. It fried the comm units.”

That must’ve been what destroyed his hearing aids, too. 

There was a niggling thought, not really a thought, in his head. The feeling that there was something he was forgetting, but whatever it was, it wasn’t coming to mind, so he pushed the feeling away. “Tell me we can get out the same way you got in, Cap.” 

Cap waves his hand. “Come on.” 

Natalie is in front of him and he can’t read her lips, but he’s pretty sure she’s shouting. She’s jumping up and down and the two boys are doing the same. He can see Mattie’s huge smile and he’s trying to sign something to his brother, but all three of them are laughing and jumping around so much that Clint can’t even pick up on what the kid is trying to say. 

The group of them follow Steve as he moves through the rubble of the half-collapsed floor. The kids are staying behind Steve, because even super-excited children understand that Captain America is supposed to _lead_ . Clint brings up the rear, completely happy to let Steve take control and just glad to be on his way _out_ of this building. 

Even more glad when he suddenly sees light, bright and blinding, shining from a window. Clint laughs and Steve turns to look at him, a smirk on his face. “Oh damn, I am so glad to see sunshine,” Clint says, and Natalie turns around and grabs his hand and he’s suddenly being pulled toward the window by a child who is far stronger than she appears. Or perhaps it’s just that he’s so very tired. 

The ceiling (floor) has sloped down here but the window has somehow remained mostly undamaged. The glass is gone, of course, and the broken edges of the frame are sharp, but it’s large enough that even Steve can fit through it. Clint can certainly make it, and the kids won’t have any trouble. 

Clint crouches next to it, little Natalie holding his hand in hers. She’s shaking and Clint figures it’s the adrenaline running off. She’s been _so brave_ and he’s so proud of her. 

Jacob pushes his brother forward, a worried look in his head but also relief. There is sunshine and a door and Captain America is here. Everything is going to be fine. 

Mattie rushes through the door without a backward glance and Clint can’t blame him. Jacob looks at him, asking if he should go, but Clint waves him forward. He has a brother to take care of. 

Natalie’s fingers shake slightly where they hold his tightly and Clint understands. It’s frightening in here, with everything thrown all around and the ceiling and the floor messed up. The entire building is lying on top of them, but being inside four walls somehow still feels safer than stepping through a doorway into the open world. 

He squeezes her hand gently and she turns to look at him. He reaches up with his free hand and tugs lightly on a ponytail. She giggles, though her eyes are filled with unshed tears. “Don’t you worry, sweetheart. I’m right behind you and Captain America is here to make sure we both get out safe. We’ll find Iron Man and Black Widow and then we’ll get you home to your mommy and daddy.” 

“Promise?” She grabs his hands in both of hers, clutching with sharp fingernails, but Clint only holds her hands back just as tight. 

“I promise. Go on through and stay with Jacob and Mattie.” 

She forces herself to let go of his hand, pulling away from him and crouching down to crawl through the window. She glances back at him once, then slips through the window and out into the light. 

He sighs with relief and turns to Steve with a grin.  

He’s completely unprepared for the needle that slides into the side of his neck and the cold feeling that bursts there and quickly spreads through his veins. He tries to jerk away but there’s an arm around his back and his chest is being pressed tightly to Steve’s, and then it’s not Steve anymore. 

“Don’t worry, Hawkeye, the children will be all right. My employer only wants you.” 

There’s a heaviness to his limbs, more than lethargy, and he can feel the strength leaving his legs. His toes and fingertips are tingling and he recognizes a nerve agent, and hates that he recognizes it. Paralytic. He tries to tell the person - he doesn’t know who they are, can’t see them from where his face is shoved into their throat but he can feel breasts against his chest - to kindly go fuck themselves, but his mouth won’t work and he just ends up drooling on them. He hopes saliva grosses them out. 

“Don’t worry about your friends, they’re safe. And they won’t bother to look for you.” There’s a shift in her hold on him and he hears something click. A small explosion, not enough to register as one to anyone not trained to listen for them, goes off behind him. The building groans and there’s a shift in the rock. The light he had been able to see by winks out and he understands. The window has disappeared, destroyed in the shift of the building, and he doesn’t need her next words to tell him _why_ no one will be looking for him. He was an assassin. He knows how to fake someone’s death, including his own. 

“After all, you’re already dead.”

Another needle in his neck sends his thoughts scattering and he wishes his tongue would work enough for a witty one-liner, but before he can even think of what he might like to say, he feels his eyes slide shut and his thoughts just slip away.


	7. And Still the Singing Skylark Soared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natalie's new favorite Avenger is Mister Hawk, and once she's older, she wants to be an Avenger, too. Or a Jedi! But then things go wrong and the Avengers learn that Clint didn't make it out of the building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** for believed death of a main character, grief/mourning, and the disturbing imagery and aftermath of an explosion. 
> 
> Chapter title comes from the poem "The Skylark," by Christina Georgina Rossetti.
> 
> A huge thank you to the Discord Crew for being so awesome and making this fic even more fun to write.

**SEVEN**

* * *

Mister Hawk was her favorite Avenger. 

It  _ used to be _ Thor because Thor had pretty yellow hair like her Molly Dolly. She loves brushing Molly Dolly’s hair and she’s sure Mister Thor’s hair is super soft just like her doll’s. She wonders if the other Avengers take turns brushing his hair. Maybe when Mister Hawk saves her and Jacob and Mattie, she could meet Mister Thor. Maybe Mister Thor would let her braid his hair. She saw pictures of him on the TV when Mommy was watching the News channel and Missus Bart, the News Lady, was talking about his braids. She had said something about Nurse Braids, but Natalie was pretty sure that Thor wasn’t a nurse. Nurses worked at hospitals and Mister Thor  _ obviously _ worked at a construction place, because he had a gigantic hammer and hammers were used to build houses. 

She bet Mister Thor built the huge tall building in New York City, like the Empire’s State Building, when he wasn’t being an Avenger. She wondered if he’d helped build the Empire’s Death Star, too. 

Of course not, that was silly. The Empire’s were the bad guys and Mister Thor was definitely a good guy. She gasped. Mister Thor must be a Jedi!

Maybe Mister Thor knew Princess Leia! Natalie had always wanted to meet a princess! She used to want to  _ be _ a princess, but princesses had to wear dresses all the time (except for Leia, because she was a Secret Jedi Princess) and they couldn’t go on big adventures and save the world from alien pirates! 

Maybe when she grew up, she could be an Avenger! She knew she’d have to be way older than she was now. Like even ten. And then she could be an Avenger and she could help Mister Hawk and Mister Thor fight alien pirates and regular pirates and giant gummy worms. Her dad had told her about the giant gummy worms and their secret belly-on. That was why she wasn’t allowed to eat an entire bag of gummy worms - the giant gummy worms (they were the king and queen gummy worms) would get mad and come and take her into the gummy world and she’d turn into a Gummy Natalie! But if she became an Avenger, she could tell Mister Thor and Mister Hawk about the Gummy Belly-on and help them kick them back to Gummyland and then she could eat all the gummy worms she wanted. 

But she couldn’t be an Avenger til she was almost as old as Mister Thor! Besides, they were stuck in the building while it was being stupid with it’s ceiling upside-down and they had to get outside so she could tell her Mommy that she was okay and that Mister Hawk was her favorite Avenger now. 

And Mister Hawk could Sign like Mattie could! That was so cool! Jacob was the only person besides Mattie that could sign at her school, but Natalie knew how to sign her name now. It took her a while. She kept forgetting how to do the T. The L was easy and she knew As best because there was two in her name. Jacob said she could just do N, though, and sometimes he just signed J if he needed to. 

She tried to remember how to sign the letters on her name as she followed Mister Hawk through the building. It was scary here. They were walking on the ceiling! What if the ceiling got tired of being a floor? Would they all fall? That would hurt! It wasn’t so scary when she tried to think about signing her name, though. She didn’t think about the ceiling as much. Mister Hawk said he could reach lips and he said her name right, but she kind of wanted to sign her name at him, too. That way he wouldn’t ever forget it and when she turned ten, she could go to the tower they lived in and she could meet Mister Tony and she could tell him that she was Mister Hawk’s friend Natalie, and when she signed her name, Mister Tony would know  _ exactly _ who she was. Daddy even said Mister Tony had a talking robot in his tower. Maybe she could meet Mister Tony’s robot! Did Mister Tony’s robot know Mister Thor was a Jedi?

What if all the Avengers were Jedis? Natalie could be a Jedi too! 

She gives a happy little skip at the thought. Daddy had said Mister Tony was a King of Slutting Around. Mommy didn’t like it when he said this. Natalie didn’t know if it was supposed to be a secret but she hadn’t known Mister Tony was a King so maybe it was. She wouldn’t tell anybody, but if Mister Tony was a king, then maybe he could make Natalie a princess! She could be a secret princess! 

But she would ask Mister Tony that later. Right now she had to help Mister Hawk get Mattie and Jacob out of the stupid building. It was her responsibility! Mommy called it her Big Sister Progative. Jacob and Mattie weren’t her brothers, but she was older than them by two whole months! And her little brother was at home with her Mommy so he didn’t need her to be  _ his _ big sister right now. He could share her! Besides, he was only two. He’d probably sleep the whole time she was being Jacob and Mattie’s big sister and never even know she wasn’t his for however long it took them to get out of the dumb broken building. 

Her Daddy always said HammerTech was called HammerTech because you kept having to take a hammer to it to make it work. She thought that was supposed to mean it was  _ shit _ . She wasn’t actually allowed to say shit - it was a bad word - but that’s what her daddy called stuff that was stupid, like the TV channels that didn’t work right and the blender they’d gotten from the grocery store that only worked once and then caught on fire. HammerTech was shit because his building was broken. It didn’t know how to be a building. 

Natalie stuck her tongue between her teeth and peered nervously at Mister Hawk. He was clearing a path through a pile of desks and not paying attention, so she ducked her head and, quiet as she could, whispered, “Shit.”  

Slapping her hands over her mouth, she giggled loudly, her face getting hot. She’d said a bad word! She looked up to make sure Mister Hawk hadn’t seen her. He was still busy moving desks. She covered her face and giggled hard into her hands. 

“Natalie, come on,” Jacob said, tugging on her wrist. 

She dropped her hands from her face to see Mister Hawk making his way through the desk path, Mattie right behind him. They were almost outside, she bet! Besides, they’d already gone down through the elevator with her sitting on Mister Hawk’s back like Yoda. They had to be super close to being outside and she couldn’t wait to tell her mommy that Mister Hawk gave her a piggyback ride. 

Maybe Natalie could ask her mommy if Mister Hawk could come over for mac n’ cheese night. Mac n’ cheese night was the best night. It was Wednesdays and her mommy mixed up the elbow noodles with the spiral noodles and used a whole huge block of cheese. And the top of the mac n’ cheese was always crunchy and that was her favorite part, but if it was Mister Hawk’s favorite part, she’d share, because Mister Hawk was the coolest and that would mean they had something in common and Natalie could say she was  _ just like Hawkeye _ and that would just be the best. 

When they found Captain America, Jacob and Mattie were  _ so excited _ , which she guessed was okay, even though Captain America wasn’t even the second coolest Avenger. The second coolest was definitely Thor, because he had the pretty blond hair like her Molly Dolly. He  _ had _ been her first favorite, but since that was Hawkeye now, Thor was second. But he would understand. Thor was a god, like in the fairytales her great gramma used to read her, and Mommy always said that God was forgiving and kind and wonderful. So Thor would understand why Hawkeye was her favorite now. After all, he got to hang out with Hawkeye  _ all the time _ when he was on Earth and not up on Olympus (Natalie  _ thought _ it was Olympus, but that didn’t seem quite right, for some reason. Did Thor know Hercules?), so he knew exactly how cool Hawkeye was. 

When Captain America took the lead, Mister Hawk moved to the back. 

It’s important that she remembers to call him Mister Hawk. Adults are Mister or Missus, unless they are soldiers like Captain America, or the lady who was her doctor. So Hawkeye was Mister Hawk, since Hawk was the first part of his name, and Thor was Mister Thor because that was all the name he had. It was just being polite, and that was important, her mommy said, and she had to be sure to be polite so he little brother would know to be polite. That was part of being a big sister.

Mister Hawk was walking behind them. Natalie wished he wouldn’t. She liked it when he led. Mister Hawk had gotten them this far. He had saved them from the dark room and they weren’t lost anymore or alone. And Mister Hawk was still here and that was awesome, but now Captain America was leading and Natalie didn’t… like that.

She wasn’t really sure  _ why _ she didn’t like it, since Captain America was the leader of the Avengers and he did a great job, and she liked him when the news lady talked about him. 

But she didn’t like him right now. 

So when the window appeared - their way out - she grabbed Mister Hawk’s hand and dragged him with her to it. If he took the lead again, he could lead them right out of the building and everything would be okay. 

The crunch of stone beneath heavy feet told her that Captain America was right behind them and she wished he would go away. 

He frightened her. 

He gripped Mister Hawk’s hand as tight as she could because she wanted him to come outside with her. It was safe  _ outside _ .

It wasn’t safe in here. 

Mattie leaves and Jacob rushes off after his younger brother with only a short backward glance. Mister Hawk tries to comfort her, tugging on her pigtails and making her giggle, but it doesn’t manage to shake that bad feeling, like a sick stomach. She’d drank spoiled milk once and had gotten really sick from it. This was like that, only worse, somehow, because she thought that there was a way she could not drink the milk and make it so she was okay, but she didn’t know how. 

Mister Hawk tells her that Captain America is here to make sure they both get out safe, but it sounds like a lie. Not that Mister Hawk is lying, but the words sound wrong to her, like they are wrong, or will be wrong. That Mister Hawk has made a mistake and doesn’t know it yet, and if she just knew what the mistake was, she could fix it. She tries to think about it, to make herself see what the mistake is instead of just hear it in his words and feel it in her stomach, but it only makes her head hurt and she just grips Mister Hawk’s hand in both of her, squeezing as tight as she can. “Promise?”

She wants to drag him through the window. She wants to just pull him out, but her head hurts so bad and her stomach feels sick and she thinks she might throw up. 

Mister Hawk tells her to go and she goes, though it takes her a minute before she can make herself let go of his hand, longer before she can get herself to leave. She keeps looking back at him, wanting him to follow.  

Then she’s through the window and Jacob and Mattie are there and they all turn to look, because Mister Hawk and Captain America are gonna get them home to their parents. 

There’s a groan of metal and a sound like something popping - the feeling a bubblegum bubble popping in your mouth, but the sound instead, like a low, smooth  _ puff _ . And then the whole building moves, the wall dropping down like a castle gate, and the window is gone. 

“Captain America,” Mattie whispers beside her, but no. Captain America wasn’t there.

Someone is crying for Mister Hawk and it takes Natalie a minute before she realizes that it’s her. The pain in her head is gone and so is the stomach ache, because she knows what the mistake was. 

But it doesn’t matter anymore, because Mister Hawk is gone. 

Jacob and Mattie hug her tight and she hugs them back and all three of them are crying, and Natalie just wants her mommy.  

She really, really just wants her mommy. 

* * *

The emergency services are blessedly efficient. The rescued people are triaged as quickly as Tony, Natasha, and Bruce can get them free from the rubble. The badly injured are taken by a rotating entourage of ambulances, while EMTs and doctors and nurses who crawled out of the woodwork patch up the people who have less dire injuries. There is a group of parents - Tony doesn’t know how exactly he knows they are parents, but they practically put off an aura of protective mother and father - with minivans cycling back and forth to hospitals. Less-injured people who don’t need an ambulance are taken to the further-reaching hospitals. There are cell phones out and people calling the parents of children who sit in a group, comforting each other with the careless sharing of hugs - something only children seem capable of, even in times like these. 

They have moved from the surrounding rubble to what remains of the lower half of the building. It is less intact than the collapsed upper-half and they have to prioritize. Besides, Cap is already running through the upper half. 

Somehow, there are survivors buried in the rubble, despite the fact that there are twenty-some floors on top of them, but there aren’t enough. They’re still pulling out more bodies than survivors, and by the time they’ve gotten everyone out, they’re all covered in dust and scratches and blood, most of it not their own. 

Tony’s headache, a constant thing since he woke up in the rubble, was growing worse, becoming too painful to ignore. He was leaning slightly against Hulk, who could take the weight of the suit, as they stood for a minute and just surveyed the damage. 

Tony caught sight of the coroners moving bodies into the back of a truck and thought  _ Who’s going to call their parents? _

The thought made him want to cry.

He thought about the parents left behind, the children, spouses and siblings. Who called these people? Who told them the terrible thing that took their family away from them? Who reassured them that at least it was quick?

He remembered that line.  _ I’m sorry, Tony, truly, I am. But take comfort in the fact that it was quick. They didn’t suffer. _

That hadn’t been a comfort. Even then, when he still believed Obadiah was a friend, was someone who cared about him, those words hadn’t been comforting. There was no comfort for that news. Even believing in something  _ beyond  _ this world didn’t help the sudden loss of someone who suddenly wasn’t there anymore.

_ Jarvis was old, sweetheart. He lived a full life. Don’t feel sad for him. _

He hadn’t known then, or perhaps hadn’t been brave enough to tell her, that he hadn’t felt sad for Jarvis. He’d felt sad for himself. 

_ Don’t be selfish, Anthony. _

_ Sorry, Mama. Sorry. _

He briefly thought of later asking for the names of the victims, but to what purpose? He couldn’t fix things. He could pay for funeral costs, certainly, but that would do nothing. To some, it might even seem like a slap in the face, taking away the last bit of care they could offer their loved ones. 

No amount of money could fix this. Nothing could.

_ Time, _ a voice whispered in the back of his mind, and Tony laughed bitterly at it. 

Time fixed nothing. It only meant you learned to breathe around the ache instead of letting it strangle you, but it never made it go away. 

“Come on,” he said harshly, “let’s go find Cap.” 

But when they got to the other half of the building, they found Steve already standing outside of it, his eyes tight and face drawn as he helped an old woman into the hands of the paramedics. There were people here who had clearly just been pulled from the wreckage, bruised and battered. There were children crying and people calling out names, and there was the building, shifting behind Steve, crumbling with obnoxious slowness, as though mocking them. 

The paramedics helped the old woman into a waiting ambulance and Steve came over, his eyes tired. He didn’t bear any scratches, any wounds inflicted already healed, but he was covered in dust and blood and there were places where his suit had been torn. 

“Did you find Clint?” Natasha asked, before Tony could voice the question. 

Steve hesitated, then shook his head. 

“What?” Natasha asked, her voice cold. She hated waiting for information. Hated having to drag it out of her teammates. She wasn’t supposed to have to work them for it. “Where is he, then?”

Steve glanced at a group nearby, two adults trying to comfort a trio of crying children, and sighed with an exhaustion that was soul-deep. “He was helping some children get out of the building when it collapsed.” He looked up and his eyes were too sad, too defeated, for Tony to listen to anything he had to say right now. No. He couldn’t listen to this. 

He turned and walked away. 

“Tony!” Steve shouted, but he heard Natasha’s quieter, “Let him go, Steve.” 

Tony stomped away, forcefully shutting off his attention from Steve. “Jarvis, search for life signs of anyone still trapped within the building.” 

There was a moment of silence, then a quiet, “Of course, Sir.”

Tony put all of his attention toward digging out the source of the glowing blue lights that Jarvis directed him to. He pulled out injured victims of the blast and he pulled out bodies and by the time he had finished, he was shaking so hard that Jarvis was controlling the suit because Tony simply didn’t have the strength. 

He reached the source of every light. He pulled out everyone that Jarvis could find. 

None of them were Clint, because he wasn’t here. 

He wasn’t here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Send Tony and the rest of the Avengers an Ask.](https://askthecadburyegg.tumblr.com/)


	8. I Hear Your Words in Mournful Cadence Toll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is difficult to come to terms with the death of a loved one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **MAJOR tissue warning for this chapter. This deals heavily with grief and mourning, acceptance of someone being gone, and what it means to no longer have access to them in your life. Please be kind to yourself.**
> 
> Titles comes from "The End," a poem by Amy Lowell. 
> 
> Thanks to the Discord Crew for all of their help with this. You guys are wonderful and I love you.

****

**EIGHT**

**I Hear Your Words in Mournful Cadence Toll**

* * *

“Where is he?!” Tony demanded, flinging his coffee cup at the wall. It hit with a shatter that sent DUM-E scurrying beneath a table. 

Tony slammed both fists down on the table and rested his forehead against them. He was hot and his skin felt wrong over his bones - wrinkly, like the flesh of an apple that was turning. The bags under his eyes had bags, his eyes were so bloodshot he should probably be literally seeing red, and there was an odd sensation in his chest, a sort of fuzziness that would probably cause Bruce to have an aneurysm just hearing about it, but he couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t.

“Jarvis, run the scans again.” 

The AI was quiet a moment, before his voice came tentatively. “Sir. I have run the scans three times now in the last hour. I do not believe--”

“Run them  _ again.” _

“As you wish, Sir.” 

A moment passed before the room was suddenly filled with satellite images of Hammer’s building and the surrounding square, spread out among various holographic screens from different angles. They ran through a progression of time and Tony watched as the scenes changed. Watched as the four of them took their places around the building over various days. Watched as people left for the day and returned in the morning - a constant flow of workers who should have been evacuated for the suspected robbery. Evacuated, not left as sitting ducks in an attack.  _ Stupid! _

He watched as the building exploded, as it was sliced neatly in half by a series of explosions, as it collapsed. Watched as some people ran, even got away. Watched as others were crushed beneath rubble. 

He watched his own pathetic attempts at rescue. Watched how many failed. He didn’t need to count. Seventy-three. Four more who died later at the hospital. Seventy-seven. 

His murder count just kept growing. 

“Were you able to detect Clint’s position?”

“Prior to the explosion, Agent Barton’s position is easily to highlight.” The video reversed to a point before the explosion and a blue light blinked to life on the forty-third floor. Tony winced at the color. 

“J, go with green for our missing bird.” The light changed color to a cheerful lime green. “Better. So, you can track him here. Now take me through it.” 

The video moved forward slowly and Tony saw the exact point when the location of Clint winked out. Seconds later, the twenty-seventh floor exploded, fire erupting outward from every window in a controlled blast. 

“The sensors detecting Agent Barton’s positions fail four seconds prior to the detonation of the explosion. However, it was not simply his that failed.” The video rewinds again and three more lights appear - red outside of the building, white on the first floor, and gold in constant motion around the building. The video starts playing again and all four lights wink out at exactly the same time. “Sensors cut out for Agents Barton and Romanov, Captain America, and yourself at precisely four seconds prior to detonation. However, I am able to determine that power to the building was not lost, so an electromagnetic pulse seems unlikely.” 

“Unless it was localized,” Tony muttered. “Jarvis, how are you tracking us? The sensors?”

“The sensors are located in your communication units, Sir.” 

Tony grabbed his suit helmet and removed the comm unit, staring at it. “I made this.” 

“Correct. Your own comm unit was fabricated here in the lab. However, the other Avengers use communication units created by SHIELD, and I track their location via those.” 

“Tell…” Tony waved his hand. “Whoever. I don’t care. Tell them I need their comm unit. Right now.” 

He grabbed a nearby tool and began to pull his comm unit apart, looking for anything that didn’t belong. 

It was perhaps ten minutes later that someone knocked softly on the lab door. “Is it the comm unit?” Tony asked, not looking up from his work. There didn’t appear to be anything wrong with his comm. 

“Mister Rogers has brought you his, Sir.” 

“Let him in.” 

The lab door opened and Cap came in, stepping quietly. “Just lay it on the table, Cap, and I’ll get to it in a minute.” 

Something was set down quietly next to him, then a soft voice said, “Tony?”

“What’s up, Spangles?” His comm unit was in perfect condition! Well, it  _ was _ in perfect condition, before he ripped it to pieces, but he could fix it. Or he could build a new one - make it better. Add in access to Spotify. Or Pandora. Maybe a personalized ipod. That’d be easy and Darcy would love it. 

“Tony. Come on. The memorial’s today.” 

Tony’s shoulders stiffened. 

“We… we should leave soon. I know you don’t want to go--”

“Of course not! Why would I want to waste my time at a stupid memorial for someone who isn’t dead? Clint’s just going to laugh his ass off at me when he gets back and we know what happens when he and I start a prank war. But by all means, you go. Take photos. We’ll laugh about them later.”

“Tony.” 

His fingers tightened around the tool in his hand. “I’m  _ not _ going. It’s stupid.”

There was a weight of disappointment in the air, a familiar feeling, and Tony could already hear the words.  _ Is this what you do, Stark? Do you just use people and when you’re done with them, who cares? Is that why you didn’t go to Coulson’s memorial? Because he was dead and of no use to you anymore? _

But Steve didn’t say those words. He didn’t say anything, just turned around and walked away. The lab door closed behind him and Tony finally sank to his knees, the tool clattering to the floor, fallen from shaking fingers. 

“J?” he whispered. “J, tell me he’s not dead. Please.”

“Sir…” Tony clutched at the edge of the table, pressed his forehead against cool metal. “Sir, I cannot lie to you. I am sorry, but all signs suggest that Agent Barton is gone.” 

Tony let go of the table and fell forward, curling up and pressing his head hard against floor. He dug his fingers into his hair and pulled hard on the strands, trying to use the pain, trying to turn it into anger, but it didn’t help. The tears came, fast and hard. 

Clint wasn’t gone. He wasn’t. They were wrong. 

They had to be wrong. 

He looked up at the vent above his lab table and begged and prayed and pleaded for the archer to come jumping through and make a crack about lazy engineers who didn’t bother with beds. 

No one came through the vents. 

Tony covered his face with his hands and cried harsh sobs into the emptiness of the lab. 

Clint wasn’t here. 

He was gone. 

* * *

There was a clatter of metal and Tony opened his eyes in time to see Clint land in a crouch on top of his lab table. The archer winked at him and Tony shoved himself to his feet. 

“Barton, you fucking ass!” he yelled. “We all thought you were dead!”   
  
Clint gave him a sheepish grin and shrugged.    
  
“Don’t you shrug at me!” God, it was like lecturing the bots when they decided to try and build something and instead blew a hole in the wall. “Cap was just down here trying to drag me to your memorial service! Who are they supposed to hand a fucking folded flag to, huh? Does Natasha get it? It better not be fucking Fury. He doesn’t get to be your... your whatever.” He didn’t want to say Handler, because he knew the person that should be getting the flag for Clint was Coulson, but Coulson was dead, too.    
  
Or well, dead. Not “too.” Clint obviously wasn’t dead - he was here!   
  
“Hey, now there’s an idea.” He gave the archer a wide grin. It hurt his face, made his eyes burn. “We should go crash your own memorial service! Do you think they’d let you keep your own flag if it turns out you’re not dead? Be kinda rude to take it back. After all, you’re a hero, Barton. You saved those kids.”   
  
Clint smiled, clearly pleased, but when his mouth moved in some response, Tony couldn’t hear anything.    
  
He frowned, tilted his head. “Say that again, Katniss. You’re breaking up.”   
  
Clint’s eyes were sad now. Apologetic. His mouth moved but there was no sound. Tony couldn’t hear his voice.    
  
Couldn’t remember it.    
  
“C’mon, Clint, not funny. You need mouth aids on top of the hearing aids?”   
  
Clint’s mouth opened, and this time blood poured out of it, spilling down his chin and over his shirt. Blood leaked from deep wounds that formed in his flesh as Tony watched.    
  
Tony staggered back, choking on a sob, on the taste of his own failure. “Oh god, Clint,” he bit out.    
  
Brown eyes glared at him in accusation before glazing over with death.    
  
The wounds on Clint’s body grew, turning into cracks that spiderwebbed outward across his flesh. They spread until his whole body was covered in cracks, and then his skin began to crumble, turning into dust.   
  
Tony lunged forward, arms out, and slammed his forehead into the bottom of the desk.    
  
He fell back onto the floor, hands clasped to the sharp, biting pain in his forehead, as he growled through clenched teeth. God fucking damnit, that fucking hurt. He kicked his leg up and down, slamming the sole of his shoe hard into the floor, trying to shove the pain away. Fuck.    
  
When it had eased enough that he felt he could pull his hand away without risk of his brain exploding, he glanced at his palm, surprised to find no blood smeared across his fingers. He cautiously touched his forehead but he had apparently not torn his skull open, no matter that it had felt that way.    
  
He lowered his hands to his chest, flattening one palm over the arc reactor.    
  
Clint was gone.    
  
Tony shut his eyes against the burn of tears.    
  
Clint was gone. And Tony couldn’t remember what his voice sounded like.    
  
Wasn’t that stupid? As much as the archer nagged at him about every little thing, Tony should have been able to call up the memory of at least one conversation, but though the words were there, the sound wasn’t. He couldn’t even force the inflection right in his head. There was nothing...    
  
He let out a hysterical little laugh. It was like he’d gone deaf, but only to Clint. Only to his memory. How stupid was that?

He opened his eyes and stared at the underside of the table. It was scratched heavily from DUM-E’s claw. Not the one he had now but an older one that Tony had replaced years ago. The little robot liked to hang out under the lab tables and scratch “pictures” in the metal undersides. They didn’t look like anything recognizable to Tony, but that didn’t matter. They were the scribbles of his kid and they were adorable. He’d never replaced the tables for that reason. He didn’t want to throw a single one away.

For all of his claims to be a futurist, someone who always looked ahead, there were a decent number of things that Tony held onto tightly.    
  
“Hey, J,” he called hoarsely.    
  
“I am here, Sir.”   
  
“Could you play something... some video with Clint?” He swallowed. “I wanna hear him talking.”    
  
“I can do that, Sir. Any particular memory?”   
  
“Just something happy?”   


The lights flickered off, dimming the lab into a pale darkness that was soothing rather than confining. Tony could hear the noise of the bots moving on the other side of the lab, the hiss of the air compressor idling, the hum of slumbering machinery.    
  
Then other sounds came to life. The scratch of metal on metal - a screwdriver, probably, twisting at a frustrating angle. The absent hum of overhead lights.    
  
There was no video, but then their didn’t need to be. It wasn’t Clint’s image that Tony needed now - he remembered that just fine.    
  
Another person who knew Tony less might have brought up the Banana Bomb Aftermath, with Clint laughing hard, or the Carmen Miranda Incident, which had Fury threatening Tony’s security for two days to let him in before he cooled down enough that Tony could be in the same room as him without worrying too much about getting shot.    
  
Someone who didn’t know Tony as well as Jarvis might have brought up a recorded memory filled with wild laughter and the happy babbling of multiple voices. Or Clint telling wildly inappropriate jokes.    
  
But not Jarvis.    
  
Jarvis knew Tony well enough to know that wasn’t what he needed.    
  
So the audio that came up was quiet. For a while, there was just the ambient sound of Tony working on something. Maybe he was fixing a repulsor, or he might have been building something new. Over the sounds of carefully-handled tools and movements, Tony could hear soft breathing, the murmurs of his own voice as he talked to himself.    
  
And then Clint’s voice, quiet and curious. “How do you have room for all this in your head?”   
  
Tony didn’t need to listen for his own answer. He mouthed the words along with his projected voice. “They just squeeze in wherever there’s space available, I guess. I should find a way to upload more memory. Then maybe I could remember Pepper’s birthday.”   
  
There was silence for a while, just the sound of quiet working. “You ever thought of building stuff for kids?”   
  
Tony snorted. “Listen, I have enough people trying to sue me over building the iron man suit. I do not needs angry parents knocking down my doors for arming their kids with bows that shoot lasers or something.”   
  
“No, not... not toy weapons. That’s not what I meant.”    
  
“What did you mean?” Clint had sounded so serious, and so strangely  _ sad, _ that Tony couldn’t not ask the question.    
  
“I mean... robots. Kind of. Pets. Or something.”   
  
“That is super vague, Merida. How about you try again.”   
  
Clint laughed softly. “All right. What about...” He sighed. “Therapy dogs, but a robotic dog.”   
  
There was a moment of silence. “I hadn’t thought of ever building an animal robot. My ki— My robots are all mechanical designs. Except for Jarvis, of course.” A pause. “Therapy dogs?”   
  
“Or emotional support animals. Some people are allergic, you know. Or they’re... hard to train.”   
  
Tony snorted. “You were going to say expensive. Don’t lie, Barton. You’re terrible at it.”

Clint chuckled. “Only where you’re involved. Should put you on the same level as Nat, really.  _ Don’t lie to this person - it doesn’t work. _ ”   
  
“You think she’d be annoyed to have me on the same level as her? Because I’ll tell you, Barton, I actually do not  _ like  _ being shot at.”   
  
“Nah, Nat’d probably be surprised you’re not on that list already. You’re one of the only people who managed to ever lie to her, after all.”   
  
“I am not stupid enough to lie to Natasha,” Tony said firmly. It was an obvious lie to Tony, who had been the one to say it.    
  
Clint chuckled. “Hey, take that up with her, then. I wasn’t around for that.”   
  
Tony snorted. “Yeah, I’ll do that. Right after I build a herd of flying pigs and release them in New York. That should make things interesting for a while.” They both laughed at the thought. When pigs fly. “Tell me more about this therapy dog idea.”   
  
“Well, it wouldn’t have to be a dog, I guess. Some people have therapy horses, or cats that are emotional support animals.”   
  
“Huh. What animal would you go with, for yourself?”   
  
“A bird, obviously. Something powerful and majestic, just like me.”

“Oh! So like… a kiwi.”

* * *

The following four days were a haze for Tony. He spent them trapped in a storm of grief-powered creativity - a kind of productivity that came hard and fast of the edge of a desperate need to fill an empty place in his chest. It was not dissimilar to those days in a cave in Afghanistan, when he had been filling a figurative and literal hole in his chest. This time, the hole was only metaphorical, but he thought it hurt more than the shrapnel ever could, even if it ever did manage to shred his heart to pieces.    


The creativity that came from that grief, as with all of the ideas that burned hard on the edge of some great emotion, eclipsed any invention he built on a normal day. There was power in that burn of tears, the ache in his stomach, that heavy feeling in his chest. It weighed on him, kept him grounded in this moment, kept his hands and mind moving. If he could just fix this piece, smooth that edge, weld this angle, he might be able to fix something in his own heart. He might be able to ease the pain. Might be able to put breath back in a body that had never been found. Might be able to arm an archer enough that he could fight off death’s hold.   
  
If he could get it just right, Tony might be able to save some piece of Clint. Somehow. Somehow, if he was just smart enough.   
  
And so he built.   
  
It wasn’t a constant movement forward. Tony destroyed as much as he crafted during those three days. When a piece of metal he had spent five hours shaping snapped down the center in a way that couldn’t be fixed, Tony’s furious raging sent half of his equipment to the floor as he did his damnedest to destroy the parts so carefully crafted.   
  
He vaguely remembered those moments. Easier to come to mind were what came after. When the rage abated and left only the grief in its wake, and Tony could do nothing but beat his fists on the floor and beg for some god to be merciful where they had never been before. To please, anyone, _anyone_ , give him back his friend. 

There was never any answer, as he’d known there wouldn’t be. He’d learned at a young age that there was no such things as gods. Every death after that - Jarvis, his mother and father, Billy, Yinsen, all that had happened with Obadiah, Coulson - had only just reaffirmed that truth.   
  
There was no such thing as a god. Or if there was, He didn’t believe in Tony Stark. 

Eventually, the grief would take all strength from him as it took all of his tears, and he would not sleep so much as fall unconscious. He would wake a few hours later. Not rested, but able to work, and so the process would begin anew.    
  
In these moments, it would be Jarvis, Butterfingers, DUM-E, and You that kept him going beyond the destructive cycle of create-rage-destroy-grief-create. He lived on the smoothies that DUM-E carried so carefully to him - a function that took too much effort for Tony to ever deny him the praise that drinking the smoothie would bestow.    
  
And so he would drink the smoothie. And if one of the bots brought him cookies or a sandwich or a granola bar, he would eat them mechanically and taste nothing. He would sleep only when unconsciousness dragged him down, but he could be bullied into taking breaks by the mournful, lonely cries of his bots. In those moments, he would sit on the floor and smooth his calloused fingers over plate metal and let their claws track through his hair and nuzzle at his shoulders. Jarvis might speak softly in an idle, unhurried voice, and while Tony would not sleep, it was still more restful than the terrible blackness that befell him after grief.    
  
And so it went.    
  
Things moved forward. Not quickly, for the moments of destruction were too great to allow creation to be swift, but they still moved forward.    
  
By the beginning of the fourth day, the physical product was completed. The coding was already running through Tony’s mind in glittering lines of black and green. He sat down at a keyboard and didn’t so much type as just spill himself upon the keys. He typed until the coding was out of his head and in front of him, in Jarvis’ brain.

**** And then the coding was implemented and it stopped being just code and became soul and brain. The metal stopped being a contraption and became a body. And the thing stopped being a thing and became a person.    
  
It was when it was finished, when he was finished, that Tony’s exhaustion finally reached through the rage and the grief and the need to build. He couldn’t have made it to the elevator on such weak legs, much less to his bedroom, and so he simply collapsed to the sofa he kept in the lab.    
  
He was asleep before his head hit the cushion.    



	9. You, little bird, are stronger than you know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint does not appreciate his captors' hospitality. Can you give negative stars on Yelp?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING: This chapter deals with being imprisoned and contains disturbing imagery, graphic violence, mentions of non-consensual drug use, and graphic descriptions of torture, including torture by drowning which requires resuscitation. Despite Clint's sarcastic commentary and major levels of sass, it is rough. Please be careful with yourself.**
> 
> Title is from "Lonely Bird," a poem by Judith S. 
> 
> Thank you to the Discord Crew for all of their help with this. Especially to WhinyWingedWinchester, who keeps screaming at me every time I write another sentence in the _best way_. I love you guys.

**NINE**

**You, Little Bird, Are Stronger Than You Know**

* * *

He comes awake with a yell, water sloshing around him. It’s so cold he thinks he can feel chips of ice running down his arms and the fabric of his shirt sticks to his chest. His heart is hammering in his chest from being woken up so suddenly and his muscles are tensed for a fight, but his wrists are tightly bound at his back with rope. He twists his arms and listens to it creak, but he can already tell it’s too strong for him to break. He bares his teeth at the man holding the bucket in front of him. He’s wearing a black mask that hides his face completely from view but Clint just skips over his face and registers information based on the way the guy stands, how he holds the bucket, the state of his fingers, and the frayed edges of his pant legs. He considers going full Sherlock Holmes on this asshole but decides that he would make better use of the information by holding it close. Clearly he’s being held captive, his neck still hurts where the needles (needles, plural!) punctured his skin, and he’s incredibly pissed off at whoever decided to wake him up with a bucket of cold water. 

“How about some soap?” he asks with a sneer. “I’d like to wash off the smell of  _ bitch _ , if you don’t mind.”

The man didn’t say anything. Probably hoping to hide the fact that he spent most of his time in an office.  _ Yeah, douchebag, I’m not just a pretty face. _ But better to keep information like that tucked away in his head where it was most useful. Gather all the intel he could and then blow this popsicle stand. 

“I don’t remember ordering a wake up call. Your Yelp rating just dropped a couple stars.” Office Dude ignored him, walking to the wall and pressing against the metal in some pattern that must have meant something to him. “I wanna talk to a manager,” Clint said loudly from where he sat, dripping. “And someone call maid service. I need to have my laundry cleaned. Someone has soiled my drawers.” The man turns to look at him and Clint gives him his best  _ I know it was you _ look. “Were you trying on my briefs? Does your boss know you steal his captive’s clothes? Oooh, or do you steal his, too? Have you shit in the big man’s long johns?”

The man turned with a frustrated sigh and opened the door to leave. 

“Don’t forget I wanna talk to the manager, asswipe!” Clint shouted. The door shut with a bang. “And where are my fucking pillow mints?” 

* * *

The cell he’s in isn’t a cell by nature, only by its present function. It’s ten feet wide and twelve feet long, roughly, at least, he’s not a walking tape measure for all that his judgments of measurement are usually pretty close.The walls were once painted white. Now, there’s still paint there, but it’s covered over with a black stain that smears his hands if he rubs hard against it but doesn’t clean off. The ceiling is a mix of black and green, like a nearly-healed bruise that’s turned into blood poisoning, and he wipes his hands on the rags he’s dressed in - grey scrubs, like an orderly outfit, or a prison uniform. If he had to guess, the room had once been an office of some kind, but it’s been abandoned for years. Probably after whatever flooding condemned the building. The ceiling is drenched in mold and its growing down the water-stained walls. 

Fuck but breathing this shit in is already bad enough for his health and he doesn’t like to think what else they have planned for him. 

And it’s cold.

Fuck but it’s cold.

It doesn’t take long before his fingers start to ache, and that’s after his toes have already gone numb. He’s in grey scrubs but that’s it. The maid’s apparently been out because they didn’t even bother giving him a pair of boxers, nevermind that he’s barefoot. The floor is concrete and already turning into ice where they threw the bucket of water on him to wake him. Looking around, though, he suspects there was more than one bucket involved. The entire floor is soaked, probably for his benefit. 

“I’m a fucking Avenger, you know!” he shouts loud enough he hopes it ruins some poor bastard’s ears. Maybe there’s audio recording going on for the room. He hopes some damn fool was wearing a headset turned on high. “Don’t I deserve the red carpet treatment? Come on, guys! Who’s the VIP in the house?”

If there’s any verbal answer, he doesn’t hear one. His hearing aids are gone with wherever they’d taken his pants - probably taken by the same obsessively fuck who decided to undress him while he was unconscious. “Sick fucks,” he mutters to himself. “Who took my fucking pants?! Loved those pants. My ass looked so damn fine in those pants. Seriously unflattering dress code, guys. Do you not see this face? This is a royally awesome face, bitches. Purple all the way.” 

He stalks through the room, back and forth. He doesn’t like being caged. Doesn’t like being buried. He likes being up high, away from the action, somewhere he can look and see the big picture. He can’t see everything that’s going on when he’s neck deep in shit, and if this isn’t shit, then he’s Queen Elizabeth and has even bigger problems than he thought. 

Pacing keeps his blood circulating, helps keep his feet from cramping, which would be a serious mobility hazard for when the assholes who took him come back in. He is going to go  _ through _ those fuckers like he’s a goddamn arrow himself. But he knows that pacing makes him look weak. It’s a nervous gesture. Tigers pace in their tiny cages in zoos. Dogs pace when they’re crated. Hella-awesome super-spies  _ do not fucking pace _ . 

But he’s cold and he knows the dangers of remaining still. Worse, of sitting down in a place this cold. His muscles will cramp and become useless. He’ll be a sitting duck, and yes, he might be a bird, but he’s no fucking duck. 

And he’s not nervous, either. He’s  _ pissed _ . So he paces, and fuck them all if they think he’s scared of them. Maybe they’ll underestimate him, think he’ll shy away. He hopes so. Hopes he can get a few in the throat with his elbows. He’s got boney elbows. Like daggers all their own. And he is going to use them. 

There aren’t any windows in the room, no way to tell time, and Clint’s internal clock has never been very specific. Crouched waiting for a mark, he could tell the passing of the hour by his need to shift position to keep his legs from cramping, but there’s none of that here, in this ice box. 

He’s stalking along the far end of the office, of course, when the door opens. It slams against the wall and the reverberation shudders beneath his feet as he’s turning his head. He’s halfway across the room, ready to plow into the bastards, when someone is thrown into the room. 

He slams against the wall with a grunt, hand clutched to his throat, as he’s shrieking. “Fucker bit me!” he screamed, blood welling up beneath his fingers and rolling down his shirt. “Fucker fucking bit me! Fucking killed me!”

Two more people stagger into the room, a third person grasped between them. They’re grunting as they strain against him and Clint could use this moment. He could use this moment to his benefit, except he can’t move, because he knows that lean body, that oily hair, the pale tone of that skin. He doesn’t even need them to turn him around. He knows exactly what that man looks like. Can never forget. 

He’s bucking in their arms, tugging first one way, then the other, his strength pulling them forward but not enough to break their grip. A fourth person enters the doorway and Clint has just enough time to see the coldness in that gaze before two pairs of long legs come up and, like a horse, kick the man hard in the chest, sending him back out through the door with a thud and clatter. 

The man laughs, a wild, half-mad sound, and then he leans to the right and his voice is lustful, “Would you like to be next, my dear? Your grip is so  _ wanting _ .” The man’s arm is twisted in a move that Clint knows from experience is painful, but rather than cry out, he snaps his teeth audibly by the man’s ear and lets out a sound like a purr. 

“Fucker killed me!” the man against the wall screams again, his voice the wailing cry of a child. 

“Oh, it was barely a nip,” Loki says with an eyeroll that is  _ audible _ . “If I’d wanted to kill you, it’s not your throat I would have bitten. There are much nicer ways to go.” 

“Shut up!” the man on the right snarls, tugging Loki’s arm back hard and this time, the god’s head leans back, trying to compensate for the way his muscle is being pulled. The man leans over the god, a grin on his face that shows all of his teeth, and that’s when Loki’s pain seems to cease, abruptly.

There’s a moment where the man just stops, confused. “Huh?”

And Clint doesn’t even see Loki move.  

There is a flicker of grey and black and the man is on the floor, blood pouring from his throat, his legs working hard against the ground as he struggles to push himself upright, but it’s a futile effort. His throat has been torn open and the blood is gushing out. The man is  _ already dead _ . He just hasn’t realized it yet. 

But Clint’s attention is stolen by Loki as the god turns on the other man who held him, both of his arms now free. His lips are pulled back from teeth stained with blood and its dripping off his chin. His eyes aren’t the manic blue that Clint recalls, nor the calm, unbothered green he saw in here. They are vibrant. They are  _ wild _ . The eyes of an animal, not a man, and when Loki tilts his head to the side, he looks like a snake preparing to strike, or a cat eyeing a trapped mouse, and his bared teeth are a threat but also a grin so frenzied that Clint is not sure that  _ he  _ will get out of this, either. 

When he attacks the man, it is quick, and he is dead before he hits the floor, and those wild green eyes turn on him. 

“Of course it’s you.” Loki sneers at him and turns to leave. 

They’d both forgotten the fourth man. 

There is a flash of blue - the blue that Clint still sees on the edge of his nightmares - and Loki hits the floor with a scream, his hands clutching his head, fingers digging into his hair. Clint recoils from that blue, sickening shade, but it fills the room, turning the walls radioactive in color, consuming everything in its wake. 

Loki’s scream turns into a snarl and Clint watches, entranced and  _ horrified _ as bones begin to shift beneath the loose-fitting scrubs the man wears. His spine arches, extending, and his dark hair thickens, growing longer. Fur sprouts from smooth, pale flesh, the color of golden sands, and the grey uniform disappears, pulled into his body, it seems, as hands and feet become thick, heavy paws. 

The snarl becomes a roar, and where Loki had lay prostrated upon the ground, a lion now crouches, tail lashing furiously. 

Clint’s breath is sharp in his lungs and his arms are covered in gooseflesh, but as terrified as he is at having witnessed this moment, he is also exhilarated. The otherworldliness of the moment leaves him trembling and he can feel a laugh trying to bubble up out of his throat, edged in hysteria. 

The lion leaps and Clint had heard, once, that they could throw themselves forward thirty feet, but he had never thought it was true. Certainly, this space isn’t large enough to demonstrate, but the force behind those powerful legs is enough to kill a man on impact, and yes, this will be their ticket out. 

The man has just enough time to raise the sceptre. 

Loki hits hard.

He hits the opposite wall harder when the doorway shines a bright, blinding blue and flings him backward double the force of his leap. 

The crash of his body against the wall shakes the room and the lion doesn’t rise from where it landed. Clint stares at it - him - for a long moment before looking back toward the door. 

The man sends him a cruel smirk and waggles the sceptre in his fingers tauntingly. “No one leaves.”

The door slams shut with a bang. 

It sounds very final. 

* * *

It’s a few hours later, he thinks, when Loki finally wakes up. 

Clint hadn’t gone over to check on him after the door had been shut. Somewhere in the shuffle, the man who had spent the whole time claiming he’d been killed had left the room, and the two bodies had been removed. The blood remained, of course, and Clint didn’t think housekeeping would be coming to clean up. 

Well, he’d wanted a red carpet. 

The lion groans, rising to its feet with slow movements that look aching. It shakes its head, tossing the thick black mane in a wave of ebony, and then bright, intelligent green eyes are studying the room. He, and it  _ is _ he, that gaze is far too intelligent to be locked in the mind of a simple beast, lets his gaze linger on Clint for a long moment before moving on. At the end of his perusal, the god sniffs hard, gives an eyeroll that incorporates his entire leonine body, and lays down for a nap. 

“Is that it?” The ears twitch but the huge cat doesn’t rise or even open his eyes. “Hey, fucking look at me, you mewling--”

“Do not finish that sentence,” the lion says in Loki’s dulcet tones, and Clint just stares at him. There is a heavy sigh and the head lifts, turning toward him, green eyes bright. “You Midgardians lost most of your magic long ago. I dared to forget.” The head rests on thick paws but Clint can still see the mouth moving in a manner he didn’t know a cat’s mouth  _ could _ move as the lion speaks. “I suppose you’ve never seen words come out of the mouths of anything but your own wrinkled offspring.” 

“Parrots can talk,” Clint says, not really thinking about the words he’s speaking, just letting his mouth work, “and crows.” 

“Mm… corvids are one thing, but parrots.” And wow, lions could sneer. Who knew? “Mimicry is the part and parcel of mockingbirds and their ilk - vermin, all of them.” The tail lashes once, scattering ice crystals. “But I’ve no desire to spend my imprisonment here conversing about birds. Or with one.” He closes his eyes. “Now let me sleep.” 

“So, what? You’ve given up? I thought you were at least more stubborn than that.” 

“I am attempting to restore some of my energy, you buffoon.” Those green eyes open and pierce him with a hungry gaze. “Now still your flapping tongue or I will risk disease by eating it so to silence you.” The great head lays back down and the eyes close and Clint doesn’t say another word. 

He did  _ not _ want his tombstone to read “kissed by lion, died from Halitosis.”

It was best to just…

He shivered. 

Chill. 

* * *

They’re fed bread and water like this is some campy movie from the forties and Clint complains  _ loudly _ to anyone in earshot until Loki rumbles a massive growl that sounds a little too close to a snarling, hungry stomach for his comfort. He dips his bread in his water and lets the mush melt on his tongue slowly, spreading out the meal, if you can call it that, so it takes him nearly ten minutes to eat it. 

He has gone hungry before. He knows that scarfing his food will do him no good. Better to trick his stomach into believing he has eaten more than he has and stave off the pains for as long as he can. 

Loki is still asleep, curled up in a tight ball, his tail idly flicking up and down in lazy movements. Clint wonders if he even knows he’s doing it. 

He’s gotten up again and is walking around, rubbing his hands together to try and warm them. The water was lukewarm, which he was grateful for, as he wouldn’t have been able to let it sit without it freezing, but drinking ice cold water would have done him no favors. 

It is cold enough to freeze the water to the floor, so he knows it must be at least 30 degrees Fahrenheit and he wonders what exactly they are planning that they need it so damn cold. 

In retrospect, he wished he hadn’t wondered.  

* * *

The touch of the sceptre is different in the hands of these men, but the blue taunts him with its glow. He can feel its presence, like a living thing, like a mind of its own, as it nears him. They touch his chest with the sceptre in the same way that Loki had ( _ “You have heart.”) _ and while nothing happens, he doesn’t lose himself to the call of that blue void, the memories still take him and, for a while, he isn’t Clint. 

* * *

They never take him and Loki at the same time. He wonders if it is because they have a limited number of people to key an eye on them or if they find it simply safer knowing where one is without risk of them wandering around. He hopes for the former because that will make it easier to escape but he suspects the latter because that is his luck. 

It doesn’t matter either way. After they taunt him with the sceptre for a few hours, running whatever tests they are running with the wires connected to his head and chest, they toss him back in his cell. 

Loki is human again that first time he comes back after the tests. Or looks human. Clint knows he really  _ isn’t _ . 

The god eyes him as he passes but says nothing. 

They keep him for far longer than they kept Clint. 

* * *

They keep Clint and Loki on a schedule that is only semi-predictable. It runs water, lashes, needles, sensory, tests, and continues in a repetitive path, but that’s where the predictability ends. He knows what day is water, but he doesn’t know if that means he’ll have his feet shoved down into buckets of boiling water, or if he’ll have ice water poured over his face until he’s choking on it. Will the lashes be on his back or will they slice into the backs of his thighs? The needles are sometimes blood being drawn and sometimes concoctions being unleashed in his bloodstream, and he never knows what the second is going to cause. Only the sensory deprivation is consistent. They blindfold him and put him in a room of bare, smooth walls, let his blindness and deafness turn the world into a monstrous place all on their own. It is somehow worse than the poking and prodding tests to see if they can unmake him. 

Today is a water day, probably Clint’s least favorite. He can handle the pain of lashes, but there’s something about being subjected to water that brings out an instinctive terror. It’s bestial, this innate fear of drowning that makes his heart race when he spies the bucket. It’s animalistic, a fear he cannot logic away because the terror of it is all too logical, and it makes him feel the blur of blue in his irises, the cold calculation of action without his own thought. He is not in control of himself. He is back under the scepter’s thrall. He is not Clint anymore. He is just another finger in the hand of a creature he has neither name nor face for. He is less than a pawn in a chess game. He is a tool. A disposable one. 

“Good morning, Mister Barton.”

Clint looks at them but his eyes gravitate back to the bucket. He wants to keep it in his sights. Like a snake that’s prepared to strike, he feels better knowing where it will be coming from. He is aware of the men who move around him, of course. There are three of them, plus the speaker, and at another time he might have felt vindicated that it took four strong men to make them feel comfortable against him, even with his hands tied behind his back. 

“We’re going to try something new today,” the speaker says. He’s the only one that ever talks and Clint knows to keep him in his sights, but there’s nothing particularly interesting about him. He reminds Clint of a rat, although that may have been the circumstances. 

“I have this friend, you see. Well, not really a friend. Let’s call him an enemy. He ended up in Afghanistan a few years ago, completely by chance, and there were… developments.”

Clint knows he’s talking about Tony. He doesn’t know anyone else with that particular backstory and everyone knew Tony Stark had been kidnapped and was found months later in Afghanistan. “Of course, the whole world knows Tony Stark came back with more issues than he has brains, and that  _ is _ saying something. Most people have been focused on what’s happened since then, and with good reason. After all, we both know how dangerous Tony can be.”

This had to be someone that knew Tony well. Maybe someone he had once been close to? The use of his first name was casual, not forced, and that only came from years of familiarity. He wished Natasha was here. She would’ve been able to figure out who it was in a second. 

But she wasn’t here and he should be glad for that. He knew Natasha could have taken it, but she shouldn’t ever need to suffer something like this. 

“Of course, I’m of a different sort. Oh, what Tony’s done since he’s gotten back from Afghanistan is certainly interesting, but not nearly so much as what he did while there. Or rather, what was done to him.” There was a soft laugh. “Did you know they recorded it? It was never televised, of course. They weren’t interested in something as simple as a ransom, but they did make sure to record what was done, and I’ve found it very… educational.” 

One of the other men in the room moved over and picked up the bucket. Clint’s body tensed without his meaning to and the speaking man dropped his hand down on his shoulder in a mockery of reassurance. “Oh, don’t worry, Hawkeye. I said we’re doing something different this time, didn’t I?” 

A movement in his peripheral vision had him turning his head. The man holding the bucket had grabbed the edge of a thick tarp and pulled it to the ground. It had looked like a table when Clint was brought in, but he saw now that it was a small pool. 

He breath hitched in his lungs as the man slowly poured the bucket into the pool. Water sloshed over the sides and onto Clint’s feet and he slammed his teeth together with a click, determined not to make another sound. 

“There’s a reason you’re here, Hawkeye. A very good reason. You see, you were under the control of a god, and then you broke free. I want you to tell me what it was like.” The hand on his shoulder squeezed and those rat-like eyes, beady and cold, burned into his. “Tell me what you saw in his head and we can put the pool away. We can take you back to your cell. There doesn’t need to be any water play today. What did you see, Hawkeye?”

Blue. 

Endless blue, like midday skies that stretched on forever, the sun shining bright, glinting off the edges of the world as though there was an end to the land and Clint knew where the door lay to the next. 

Pathways that twisted and turned but never seemed to end, crossing back upon themselves even as they passed by doors to places Clint knew but didn’t know. 

Whispers of emotions, half-felt but mostly hidden, as he spied doors in his vision. Knowing this one, somehow, led to cold and snow, and feeling shame and fear and  _ hate hate hate  _ burning inside him like frostbite. 

And this one, reeking of moss and wet earth, shining black as the smoothed edge of a piece of black coal, humming with a sound like a lullaby. It felt like an end that was endless - a stretching sob that went on and on and didn’t so much as end as it was buried in a sleeve and muted, shoved beneath so many layers of pretending that it had been suffocated into silence. 

This door, golden as sunlight and sharp as glass, that felt like  _ wanting _ and hope and despair and an endless wound where pieces of himself - of him? - had been cut off to try and fit the mold, but the blood from the wounds was both too repulsive and somehow unrecognized. The only truth in the jagged edges of unhealed hurts was that no blade could cut him to proper size. He would never fit. 

And blue. 

Blue like the sky and blue like ice and blue like a stretch of mirror that forced you to see yourself and recognize that you left the world wanting. A mirror that forced you to see inside yourself even as you lost yourself. A blue like losing all control and yet also like relief, because finally, finally, it didn’t matter and he could close his eyes and not care. Someone else would do the work. Someone else would carry the burden. Someone else would cut him to the size they needed and here, here, here was he was the right, proper size. Here, finally, he had found his place. 

Clint exhaled a silent breath, the same sort he would exhale while holding his bow trained on an enemy. Because that’s what this was. He was in the field. He was on a mission. He was sitting high on a ridge and staring down into an enemy that well knew he was there. He was Hawkeye, the archer, former-assassin, Avenger, and there was no one better at wielding a bow than he. He could see better from a distance - this fact was well-known to any who had worked with him even peripherally - and that didn’t mean seeing things only in the physical sense. Hawkeye’s gaze stretched far and wide and he saw what others didn’t, or didn’t want to. 

It would be easy to hate Loki. It would be easy to blame him. It would be more than easy to tell this asshole what he wanted to know - to tell him that the inside of Loki’s brain was filled with so much self-hatred and pain that the right words, the right incentive, might have the god just giving up. Clint thought he could even give them the words, if he focused on the echoing murmur that never seemed to end - as deeply consuming as that blue in his mind. Clint could give them just the right words to sew strings to the god that would let them use him like a puppet. He could, and it would be so easy. 

Except, Clint had seen inside Loki’s head. He had  _ been there _ . Telling them wouldn’t save him. They had no intention of letting Clint go free ever, and if he gave them this, if he helped them turn Loki into a puppet, then he would have no right of rescue or release, because Loki had  _ also _ been enthralled, and Clint knew that. 

So yes, hating Loki, blaming Loki, would be so easy, because it would make Clint feel better to have a face to that blue shade, to have a name to the hands that maneuvered his limbs as though he were nothing more than a doll. If he blamed Loki, it might help the feeling of weakness that still burned inside him, the idea that he was somehow less than the others for succumbing to that color. He was only a man, after all. He stands next to super soldiers and gods and genetically modified monsters and whatever the hell Natasha is, and he knows that he is only human. Even Tony is more than a man, although Clint would never be so callous as to say so. It’s more than the suit. The man had an artificial heart, or as close to one as modern science could manage. He was practically a cyborg - part man and part machine - but he doesn’t think that Tony would find either humor or comfort in that, so he never says such a thing out loud. Not even to Tasha. 

But Clint knows what he is. He is a man among people who are more than men, less than them in strength if not skill, and sometimes he fears that he is the link that will break the chain. They are all so broken and their coming together so haphazard that it sometimes feels as though if they pull too hard on one frayed thread, they’ll all unravel. 

He doesn’t want to be that thread. He doesn’t want to be the chink in their armor, the weak piece that tears the Avengers apart and scatters them to the four winds. But sometimes, he fears that he already is. Sometimes, in the long nights after a hard battle, when his body is exhausted but sleep just won’t come, he thinks he might be more than just the weakest member of the team. Sometimes he thinks he can still see  _ blue _ on the edges of his vision, that the color is lurking there, waiting to flood back in, to take over again. Sometimes, he thinks that he’s still compromised, and it would be easy to blame Loki, then, because if it was Loki’s fault, then Loki could undo it. Or he could give them Loki, give them the words they needed to break him, and in his breaking, that blue might finally recede. That feeling that he was lost, that he was out of control, that he might never be  _ Clint _ again might finally leave.

It would be so easy.

Clint looked at the pool of water. He had read Tony’s file. It was far from complete and quite a lot had been redacted (probably by Tony himself), but Clint knew how to read between the lines and there wasn’t much here to be left to the imagination. This… this would suck. 

This would suck, but Clint saw better from a distance, and there was no way that he could hand Loki over to these bastards, and no way he could get out of this. Not now, anyway. Not yet. 

He chuckled and forced himself to relax in the chair. 

“No.” 

The speaker tsked behind him and the hand pulled away from his shoulder. Clint drew in a breath. He’d need it. 

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

Hands under his arms hauled him to his feet and pulled him over to the pool, standing him in front of it. He stared down into the water, momentarily grateful for the dark bottom of the basin. The water appeared almost black. That was fine. He could deal with that. So long as it wasn’t fucking  _ blue _ . 

“One last chance,” Speaker said, walking around the other side of the pool and staring at him through his mask. “Tell us what you saw in the god’s head.”

Clint stared into the man’s face, studying his eyes. They were dark brown, almost black, with flecks of pale brown within them. Clint committed them to memory, burning them hard into his mind so he wouldn’t forget them, and then closed his own eyes, forced his body to relax.

He wanted to tell this asshole that he looked forward to shoving an arrow in his eye, but he wasn’t in a position here where saying that would benefit him. Someday soon, though, he would find an arrow, and he’d know right where to aim it. 

If there were words spoken after that, Clint didn’t know, but the man must have made some signal. The hands grasping at his collar tightened for just a moment before he was shoved forward, fingers like a clamp at the back of his neck, and for a while, all he knew was water. 

* * *

He had to give it to the Speaker. He was tenacious, and patient. Most torturer’s held their captive’s heads under water for however long they could handle, brought them back up, and demanded the answer again. Not this guy.

Clint’s head was shoved under water and held there until his body started fighting to get out, ignoring his commands to  _ relax _ because damnit, his lungs needed air. He was brought up, given a few seconds to suck in deep lungfuls of oxygen, and shoved back under.

On the third time, they held him under until his vision started to grey at the edges, until his lungs shouted out the stale air within them and demanded to be filled with whatever was handy. They pulled him back up, choking, spitting water and coughing hard, his sight wavering as it struggled against the high that always came with oxygen deprivation.

They held him up as the Speaker came closer, shoulders hunched and head tilted to suggest he felt apologetic. If Clint had had the air to do so, he would have laughed. He worked alongside  _ Natasha Romanov _ . This asshole didn’t come close to her level of carefree manipulation. Idiot.

“Tell me what I want to know and I’ll stop.”

Clint tilted his head back, looking down at the man, and grinned the great big smartass grin that always made Natasha roll her eyes. “You mean we’ve started already? Fuck, man, you should’ve told me.”

Those brown eyes darkened behind the mask and the man turned away, waving a hand at the two holding Clint.

The message was clear.  _ Again _ .

He had just enough time to suck in a harsh breath before he was back beneath the water.

They weren’t gentle.

Clint had been subjected to torture before. This was not his first rodeo. But these guys… they weren’t new to this. This wasn’t the first session they’d worked and Clint wasn’t their first guest.

He liked to think perhaps he was the best they’d had so far, though.

They yanked his head up from the pool by his hair, Clint wheezing for breath with lungs that didn’t want to work. The world was a grey forest of trees that blurred as they moved and he wondered when he’d fallen through a portal into Middle Earth. His head lolled to the side, resting against someone’s shoulder, and he thought he could feel his tongue hanging out, like a dog. Was he panting? No. That required breathing.

Something warm eased down his leg and he thought he heard a yell somewhere in the distance, but there was water everywhere and land was just so far away.

Something hard slammed into his stomach once, twice, and he was suddenly vomiting everything he had ever eaten. Water gushed from his nostrils, running over his mouth, and Clint choked and coughed and threw up what felt like a whole river. His body sagged in the arms of the men holding him and for a moment, they let him hang there, their arms the only thing keeping him on his feet. He breathed.

For a while, he just breathed.

“Are you ready to tell me now?” Speaker asked, walking in front of him.

Clint blinked blearily and kept breathing. There was a wet feeling in his lungs, a shuddering, webby feeling. Not good.

Fingers dug into his scalp and tugged his head up by the short strands of hair, forcing him to look into the man’s masked face, his cruel eyes. “Tell me what I want to know.”

Clint tilted his head back and let out a groan as lascivious as he was able to make it, rocking his hips. “Harder, big boy. I like it rough.”

The fingers held for a moment, keeping his head up, before they let it drop. Clint’s head dropped back to the shoulder of the man on his right and he smiled. “So sweet, lettin’ me cuddle you. You’re all a bunch of softies.”

He didn’t see the Speaker move but he had already expected it. The bad guys didn’t like lip. Hands dragged him forward and he was pushed back into the water and held there.

And they kept holding him there, no matter how hard he struggled. No matter that the breath burst out of his mouth in a wave of bubbles. No matter that the metallic taste of the water preceded it filling his lungs. They held him down until he felt his limbs finally go numb and blackness took over the blue.

* * *

He wakes heaving.

There’s water everywhere. It fills his eyes, his ears. It runs over his face from his nostrils and he’s choking on it as his stomach contracts, his lungs struggling to breathe around it. All he can taste is iron. His breath shudders into his lungs, choked in desperately around rivers of water, and the sudden oxygen only makes him cough harder until he thinks his own attempts at breathing will be the end of him.

But then the coughing subsides and he’s sucking in breaths so deep his stomach aches. His chest hurts and his throat is raw but there is blessed air entering his lungs and he doesn’t think he cares much about anything else.

A shadow moves over him and he opens his eyes to see Speaker. The man’s lips move and Clint can still read them through the blurring of his vision.

“Cooperation is key, Hawkeye. Remember that and next time perhaps we won’t have to take this route, hm?”

The man steps over him and Clint is hauled to his feet. He has no strength to even hold himself up, barely has enough to even keep conscious and he’s fighting that blackness as hard as he can. There’s a heavy feeling in him, like an anchor, and he thinks if he gives in even a little, he’ll be back in the water, so he struggles to stay afloat. 

They drag him, these two big burly men with masks that shield their whole face. They’ve got one arm each wrapped over their shoulders and his feet drag out behind him uselessly as they carry him through corridors of sheet metal and industrial lighting. 

They are in a warehouse. 

An old one, he would guess, by the fact that the door they come to doesn’t have even an electronic lock. It’s all keys, baby, and Clint thinks, hysterically,  _ Narrows it down  _ in The Doctor’s manic voice and can barely keep himself from giggling. 

The door unlocks with a loud clunking noise that he thinks would hurt Tony’s soul to hear and he’s dragged through. They toss him to the floor without a care just inside the door and close it behind him, locking it, before he can really register that his nose is only  _ not _ broken because he had the presence of mind to turn his head at the last second, but the bone at his brow is all but screaming from slamming straight into concrete.

“Fuuuuck,” he says, drawing the word out until he starts coughing again, his whole body cringing at the sensation. It’s a wet cough. Pneumonic. This is bad. He knows this is bad. He does not need to be imprisoned in a warehouse in the middle of god-knows-where with fucking pneumonia because his captors thought it was a good idea to try and give him the world’s most thorough bath.

He lay there for a indeterminable amount of time, dozing off and on, waking to his own desperate coughing. His wet clothes were sticking to him and at some point, he had begun to shiver. 

Hands curled under his arms, sliding around his back, and he whined as he was moved. He said something, he wasn’t sure what, but he thought he might have been begging. He didn’t want to go back into the water. 

“Hush,” someone murmured, and it was almost kind, the way he was carefully positioned so he lay against someone, the warmth that suffused him from their skin. 

He shouldn’t trust this. Knew it was a trick. Knew it was to get him to tell them things, but he wouldn’t. He never would. 

He told them that. Told them that he would never tell. 

There was silence for a long while and then long fingers dragged softly through his hair. “I know,” they murmured, and Clint nodded. Good. Then they knew this would never work. It would never work.

“Go to sleep,” they told him, and they were  _ so warm _ he wanted nothing more than to follow that command. It sounded so good, sleep. 

“Go fuck yourself,” he slurred, even as he nuzzled down into a more comfortable position. Maybe this was a trick, but for now, it was nice. He could take advantage of it while it was being given. It wouldn’t change anything. He would never, ever tell. 

Sleep came easy. He dreamed of long expanses of high grass and a sunrise that turned the sky red and gold and never seemed to end. There wasn’t a flicker of blue in sight and he was flying on wings that had never known a cage. 

It was a good dream. 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr as TalkingToMyselfAgain.


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